Come, my love, and I'll tell you a tale . . .

FIC/MIX: i'll give you stars and the moon (Doctor Who Multiverse Crossover)

2008-11-22T03:30:40Z

Title: i'll give you stars and the moon (Or, Five Women The Doctor Never Met and One Who Keeps Coming Back)
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy/d_generate_girl)
Rating: PG-13, but only for some language.
Fandoms: In order - Doctor Who, Ashes to Ashes, Criminal Minds, Firefly, Madeline L'Engle's "Time" Quartet, Battlestar Galactica, and Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.
Disclaimer: Not Russell T. Davies, Ashley Pharoah, Edward Allan Bernero, Joss Whedon, Madeline L'Engle, Ron Moore, David Eick, or Neil Gaiman. Sorry. Don't own a thing.
Spoilers: Oh god, um - A2A in general, none for CM, the entire series of Firefly, the Time Quartet as a whole, only up to S3 of BSG, "Brief Lives" for Sandman, and all aired seasons of Doctor Who.
Author's Notes: To Em, for being my very favorite braintwin and cheerleader, even when that means being mopey and unproductive together. Also, for the enabling of the A2A love, without which, my brain would be free of the awesome that is Keeley Hawes. Now go post yours!
Summary: These are the might-have-beens, but it's not up to the Doctor to change them.

~*~*~*~*~

maybe i'm born right out of my time

The TARDIS sets down in the middle of an old industrial complex, though he's not happy about it. If it was up to him, he'd keep her orbiting the nearest black hole and never set eyes on another living soul, but her sense of self-preservation is stronger than his. While there's probably no one around for miles, she still nudges him to clean up a little and take a jacket with him, because it might be cold. She's worried, he realizes, and well, she's got reason. Not the right - because he's just wiped out two entire races - but his indignation is meaningless to her when he's suffering.

He takes the jacket anyway.

Just as he's walked a bit down the old access road across from his ship, a car comes screeching around the corner and nearly runs him down, doing a quick 180 to avoid him. His reflexes haven't dulled, and he quickly darts to the side, thankful for the jacket which protects him from the gravel the car's kicked up. It skids to a stop alongside him, and a bloke in a black suit and sunglasses rolls down the window to shout over the sound of the motor.

"Oi! Looking for a wanker in coveralls, carrying a posh, mouthy tart with an arse like Shirley Eaton. You seen him?"

"No, I - I haven't," he stutters, unused voice patterning itself after the bloke's and oh, he hasn't imprinted in a long time. "Just you, mate."

The man doesn't respond, just pushes his sunglasses back on and hits the gas, tearing back the way he'd come. The Doctor looks around - if he were a kidnapper with the law after him, where would he be? There's a warehouse just down a ways, plenty of places to hide in there, and a big shiny padlock on the door to throw off anyone chasing him. He jogs over to the main door and pulls hard. The lock isn't even closed - pops right open without even having to use his sonic screwdriver. Bugger.

He pulls open the door, and immediately dodges the two-by-four swung at his head. On the other end is a woman, tall even without her ridiculously-heeled boots, her curly hair flying out in all directions. And she's yelling her head off.

"Do you have any idea whom you've just kidnapped? I'm DI Alex Drake and you'd better believe I've got fifty CID men just waiting to take a lick out of your hide! I was trying to reason with you, you bloody construct, and then you had to go and knock me on the head, as if I haven't had enough trauma for ten lifetimes-"

"Oi! I didn't kidnap you!"

"Like bloody hell!"

He holds up his hands and stays where he is. "There was this bloke, blond, wearing sunglasses and driving a flash red motor, looking for you. This looked like the only place to hide someone way out here. I was just trying to help."

She lowers the length of wood, and steps closer. He can see her through the skylight - forehead sporting a nasty purple bruise - and as soon as she decides he's no threat, she drops the two-by-four to the ground.

"Got yourself a nice shiner there," he remarks, pointing to her head. "How hard did he hit you?"

"Hard enough for me to start seeing that stupid clown again," she says, gesturing to the corner opposite him. He doesn't think he should mention that there's nothing there, because, well, there are a lot of things that lurk in the shadows. He eases closer to her, and guides her to sit down on a nearby wooden box. She looks up at him, surprised. "You're not going to take the piss out of me for seeing impossible things?"

He smiles, enjoying the way the new facial muscles stretch. "I try to believe three impossible things before breakfast. And seeing as how I'm brand new, I haven't had breakfast yet today."

"You are barking mad."

"Madder than traveling in time?" At her wide-eyed gasp of shock, he nods. "Only been done this way once before - guess you're familiar as to who."

"Sam Tyler," she breathes, reaching out to touch his leather jacket, startled when she realizes it's real.

"Wish I could help you, DI Drake, but this is your adventure. I suggest you go find that Wizard - and listen to him this time when he tells you there's no place like home."

~*~*~*~*~

i swear it's my turn now

"Well, hel-lo gorgeous!"

He's still locking the TARDIS behind him, and odd, Jack's voice doesn't go quite that high. He turns to find a blur of blonde-and-green whizzing by him in an office chair, skidding to a stop in front of said ex-conman. They'd left Rose with Jackie for a visit and planned to hit Celaxia VI in time for the hoverball finals, but Jack's Vortex Manipulator had gone haywire and dragged Jack, the TARDIS, and himself along for the ride. Looking around, they've apparently materialized in an underground base of some sort. The date on the nearest monitor marks it as the early 21st century, with Eastern Standard Time highlighted. America, then. There are computers - and whoa, that program is definitely not for public use for at least six centuries - and the aforementioned excitable blonde in her office chair looks rather impressed with herself.

Even Jack is momentarily surprised, but recovers, and kneels beside the girl. "You rang?"

"I brought you here?"

He can hear the leer in Jack's voice. "I'd say so, sweetheart. Locked onto my vortex manipulator and yanked us here. Not that I mind - there are worse people to get hijacked by than a pretty girl."

She blinks behind her multicolored glasses, glances at first him, then Jack, and shakes her head. "I didn't think it'd actually work! I mean, all I did was play around with a few equations and the base code needed to tie Einstein's theory of mass-energy equivalence to the uncertainty principle. It was just theoretical!"

Mass-energy equivalence - oh Rassilon. She's got his attention now.

"You were 'playing around' with quantum mathematics?"

She fixes him with a fairly impressive glare. "I was bored. What was I supposed to do, beat Katamari Damacy for the fifth time?"

Humans. "You're not supposed to have solved the theory to transmat travel, that's for sure. You're at least fifteen centuries too early - humankind hasn't even made first contact yet!"

Jack puts a hand on his arm, pulls him to the side and holds up a finger in a nonverbal "give us a second, will you?" to the girl.

"C'mon, Doctor - be nice to her. She's a genius! When was the last time you met a human who could solve quantum equations in their spare time?"

"Berlin, 1928. Decent bloke, name of Albert. Utterly brilliant. Probably should have taken him traveling with me, but well, we'd have no theory of relativity if I had."

"No freaking way," the girl said, planting her hands on her hips and giving them a good look at her multicolored sundress. A few of his previous selves would have approved of the color scheme, but this regeneration found it a little eye-watering. "You were alive in '28? Yeah, right."

Why do they never believe him? Jack, though, turns back to the girl and gives her one of those spectacular grins - not that he notices their quality, but Rose assures him that Jack's smile is, indeed, spectacular.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Miss Garcia, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

"Hamlet. Very appropriate." She spins in her chair, and then stops, blinking up at Jack. "Wait, I didn't tell you my name." Before Jack can offer an explanation, she pulls out a taser from underneath her console, and presses a button set into her keyboard. "Morgan, I need those rippling muscles of yours down here ASAP."

"Look, I shouldn't have called you by name, but we mean you no harm. We got pulled here by your equation by mistake. All we want to do is fix it."

She brandishes the taser, and he and Jack tacitly agree to back up to the TARDIS. She's not going to be playing around with transmat technology any longer - at least, not if setting 19 still works on his sonic screwdriver, which he employed while Jack was busy quoting the Bard.

A man kicks through the door opposite them, holding a gun. "All right, hands in the air, don't move - you okay there, baby girl?"

He and Jack hit the door to the TARDIS, but Jack can't resist a parting shot. "Looking good, Derek. Glad to see the FBI's working out for you."

He fires the old girl up, closing the doors on the two astonished FBI agents, and the last thing he hears before the TARDIS dematerializes is the man's voice.

"Harkness?!"

~*~*~*~*~

by the holes that it drills in me

He was expecting the rudeness, dealing with mercenaries. But they were Browncoats, and they'd gotten a raw deal in the War for Independence. The 23rd century wasn't very kind to humanity; least he could do was give them his extra rotating hyperdrive coil and the name of a good hideout on Boros.

The twitchy captain and his very-heavily-armed backups weren't too bad. The man didn't seem to be burdened with an overabundance of brains, while the woman? Well, Leela would have been swapping throwing-knife techniques with her inside of two minutes, once they'd figured out neither side meant each other harm. And the bouncy mechanic had thrown him for a bit, until she'd peeked behind him, shrieked, and made a beeline for the TARDIS's navigational array. The younger man was watching him warily, but that was probably due to his sister wailing and crying and hugging her knees to her chest.

Overly developed empath? Nah, not in this century, and she didn't look like she'd had any Companion training. Neurological disorder? Possibly, but why would it present only when he stepped on board? Then she looks up, straight at him, and a howl rushes through his ears.

The Archangel network . . . burn with me . . . no, Master, no, please . . . blonde hair, red nails, Rose never had those nails . . . Lucy wore diamonds not obsidian . . . bad wolf, bad wolf, who's afraid of the big bad wolf . . . came back wrong, Jack my lad . . . tell them the story and save the world, Martha Jones . . . you are not alone, old friend . . . NO, REGENERATE!

He breaks off the connection as her scream echoed around the bay, her brother running to her side along with the mechanic and the captain. Oh, the poor girl. Genetically enhanced telepath - DNA and neural pathways meddled with beyond even his comprehension - oh, that must hurt. Every second of every day, pain and fear and hurt like no one should ever know.

"What did you do to her?", the woman with the gun snaps, leveling the rifle at him.

"She's a telepath, isn't she? Hears what people are thinking, can pick up people's feelings and emotions, probably a little bit of precognition - dead useful in your type of situation - but can't control any of it. She's like an overloaded circuit, building up power and emotion until she can't hold it anymore, am I right?"

The captain looks suspicious, but the young man nods. "The Alliance did it to her. River's been like this since she was 14. If there's anything you can do-"

"Now, Doc, I know you wanna help your sister, but we don't know this fine gentleman here from Adam. Could be Alliance."

"I assure you, I've never-"

The captain interrupts him. "Don't know you. Don't much care to. You're willing to trade engine parts, but you ask for nothing in return. Got yourself a Londinium accent and a feng le looking ship that's giving my mechanic spasms of girly joy. Makes a man just a bit suspicious."

He edges carefully away from the guns and speaks directly to the young man. "I'm not Alliance. I'm not with anyone. But I might be able to help her."

After a silent exchange of glares with the captain, the young man nods, letting go of his sister. "If you can help her, I don't care who you are."

"Not human. Not from around here. Ran away from home and hasn't stopped running. Binary vascular system, Simon - you should hear it. Sound of drums."

Her voice echoes around the cargo bay, nails tapping on the steel-plated deck. Da da da da. Da da da da.

"Don't. Don't do that," he says, sitting cross-legged opposite her. "River, look at the light on the end of the device. Look only at that light and block out everything else that you feel. Can you do that for me?"

She nods, and he flicks the sonic screwdriver onto its lowest setting. All it's doing is emitting a slight hum and providing illumination. Gently, he takes her right hand in his left, and reaches out his other hand to touch her temple. It's not even conscious, breaching her psyche - she's got no barriers, no stopping measures to use against him. He can feel her panic, and he eases off, letting her know that he's not going to pick apart her brain like the people who did this to her.

Blue hands. Pocket-sized neural disrupters. Oh, those rat bastards.

"Two by two, hands of blue. No names, no faces, no mercy. They took River, made her into a tool, and put her back all broken. Needed Simon to get River back. Need a Doctor to put her back together. Don't want to be alone, Doctor - followed the path and never strayed, but the wolf got me in the end. Don't want to be the tool anymore. Just River."

He can fix her - she needs a Doctor, after all.

~*~*~*~*~

remember me to one who lives there

It had taken him a while to want to go back into a library, even when Donna was still around. They'd eventually gotten around to spending a weekend in sixth-century Alexandria, and had cautiously spent an afternoon reading Justinian in the original Latin. Now, though, he can't even look at his library on the TARDIS without remembering Donna's face on that kiosk and the Vashta Nerada killing River's crew, one by one. Or worse - that squat little moneylender attempting to grope Donna and getting slapped so hard he spun like a top. Oh, they'd laughed till their sides split.

Nine hundred and fifty years, and you'd think he'd get used to the feelings of abandonment and loneliness.

Although, really, if he was looking so miserable slumped on a bench outside Oxford Library that random strangers kept offering him money or food, well, it was time for even a depressed Time Lord to pull it together. He's just about to return to the TARDIS for a cup of tea when a very pregnant woman sits down next to him.

"Sorry! Didn't mean to startle you. It's just that there's no more empty benches, and if I walk another step, my feet are going to come right off. Not that that's medically possible - my husband assures me that I'm just exaggerating."

She doesn't look a bit like Donna, or Martha, or Rose - actually, she reminds him of Sarah Jane - but she's got that smile that all of his Companions seem to share. Open and honest and showing a good deal of the heart she wears on her sleeve. She's wrapped in a warm pea coat, toting a shopping bag, and he scoots over to give her a little more room.

"Husband's a doctor, then? Well, I'm in good company. Sit as long as you like."

"Thank you, Doctor. Do you practice in Oxford? My husband gave a paper here not too long ago, over Thanksgiving. Calvin O'Keefe?"

He mentally runs through everyone he's met in London around the early seventies and hmmm, maybe. "Sounds a little familiar. What's his field of study?"

"Immunology. He and my brother Dennys are the 'real' doctors in the family. My mother and father have their PhDs in silly things like astrophysics and microbiology."

"Hmm, Dennys. Calvin. Astrophysics and microbiology and applied immunology. OH! You're not Meg Murry-O'Keefe, are you? Alex and Kate Murry's daughter?" At her chagrined nod, he laughs. "Blimey, you lot are brilliant! And I mean, coming from me, that's saying something, but you are. Your whole family. You're all brilliant and far too advanced for this silly little planet."

He'd love to tell her that it's her children - Polly and Rosy - who finish the work that Alex Murry started. Proving the existence of the fourth dimension and making it possible for Earthlings to travel in time and space. And it's she and Charles Wallace who use the full potential of the low-level psychic powers inborn in a tenth of the human population. He can feel her - tiny, fluttery little human mind pushing at his. All of the Murrys are special, but Meg and her younger brother are in a class of their own. Whatsit was right about them.

"We're not stars, you know. That was something Whatsit told you so you'd understand better. An analogy, like the tesseract. We do try to be Teachers, but some of us, not naming any names here, fail rather spectacularly."

He expects her to gasp, protest that this isn't happening, she can't be talking about other planets and time and space. He expects this because she's human, and that's what humans do before they begin to understand. They deny. But Meg Murry O'Keefe, who, out of anyone in the entire human race, has the ability to understand what he's talking about, just quietly reaches over and slides her hand into his.

"I do not know everything, still, many things I understand."

"Goethe. Brilliant man. Bit of an oddball. Had a thing for peach turnovers."

"That wasn't what I meant." She bumps shoulders with him, playfully, and shakes her head with a rueful smile. "Mrs. Who said that to my little brother, Charles Wallace, the day we went to Camazotz. I've never forgotten it. Charles is a traveller, like you. It's something you all need to remember."

Oh yes, very much like Sarah Jane, indeed.

"What else would you tell your brother?", he asks, almost jumping when she squeezes his hand in hers, and her voice brushes softly into his mind.

That he is never alone.

~*~*~*~*~

can't stop what is on its way

Regeneration is never a fun experience, but this one really kind of tops even the indignity of regenerating from sixth-him to seventh-him because of a bump on the head. Ushas had a field day with that one.

"Explain this to me one more time. What exactly are you?"

Not who. What. There are times when he really, really doesn't love the human race.

He tugs at the handcuffs, hastily produced from a nearby guard as soon as he'd regained consciousness. "Laura, really, this isn't necessary. You've had breakfast every morning for the past three weeks with me."

She glares at him over her glasses. Ouch. Should've listened to the Admiral when the man had warned him about her temper.

"That isn't possible. You aren't the Doctor."

"Actually, I am. I just look different."

He supposes he should be glad - he could have been thrown in the brig, keeping the Cylons company. Instead, he's seated in a chair in the aft arms locker, being interrogated by the woman he'd thought he'd been having a fairly successful relationship with. Come to think of it, the Admiral had warned him about that too.

"I'd say so," she replied dryly, leaning against a shelf of grenades. "You used to be male. Of that I'm fairly certain."

He - wait, WHAT? He looks down at himself - and wow, would you look at that. Flared hips, smaller bones, delicate hands, and very apparent breasts. He's done the unthinkable - Time Lords joke about regenerating as the opposite sex, certainly, but only one in a million actually do it. And they usually do it deliberately, whereas he's managed it without even trying. Ushas would be rolling with laughter, if she were here to see this. Koschei would be beside himself; either that or extremely turned on.

Laura isn't really amused or aroused - she's rather irritated, actually. "No, seriously, what the hell are you?"

"I told you, I'm a Time Lord. You saw the scans you made Doctor Cottle do - two hearts, two stomachs, four lungs, and a neat little trick of evolution called triple helix DNA. The third strand is what makes it possible for me to regenerate - to grow myself a completely new body, when I die. You lot really should stop shooting suspected Cylons on sight, don't you think?"

God, she's gorgeous when she's angry. Eyes flashing, lips pursed, pale complexion reddening to a blush; she's always passionate, in everything she does. It's why he was so drawn to her - that, and she reminds him of another Lady President he'd known, once upon a time.

"You can heal yourself from a mortal wound. Resurrect yourself?" She actually has to grab hold of the doorframe, to calm herself. "Do you have any idea what that says to me?"

Bugger, he should have known. Should have remembered his history. President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, the reformer, the prophet - she has incurable cancer, and it's going to kill her. She dies just after the Fleet reaches Earth. How badly must she want to believe he's telling the truth, that he isn't a Cylon and that just maybe, he's a walking miracle for her?

"I've got a good idea." He tugs at the cuffs. "Let me go, Laura. You know I would never harm you. Or anyone else."

"I don't know anything, anymore, Doctor. Ten minutes ago, you were just another man. Now, you're someone new. What else can you change, with that fantastic ability of yours?"

"I can't change history," he says, bluntly. "I can't save you."

"What?"

"You're dying. You haven't told anyone yet - not even the Admiral - but your cancer is back. It's more aggressive than ever, and no amount of chamalla or diloxin is going to help. And neither can I. I'm not a medical doctor - I can't cure cancer, or take you back in time to get another dose of hybrid blood. And even if I could, I wouldn't change time like that."

Whatever righteous indignation or titanium backbone that was holding her up just deflates, leaving her holding herself up by the metal shelving. She nods at the Marines lurking outside the hatch, and they enter, circling him to unlock the cuffs. At another nod, they head back outside and swing the hatch closed, and Laura backs up to the bulkhead, like the shelves just can't hold her any more.

He cautiously rubs his wrists - delicate, fine-boned, more even than his fifth or his tenth, and that's saying something - and approaches her. She flinches at the hand he lays on her shoulder, and just collapses into him, and wow, how did he miss how much shorter he is in this body? They're practically the same height, which is nice for these types of things, and he slides down the wall with her, ending with her slumped against him. She lays her head on his shoulder, and he brushes careful fingers through her hair, knowing in such a very short time, it's going to fall out as her cancer rips through her body.

It is only then that he realizes he has to leave her. He can't do it - watch another person he loves fade away before his eyes.

Coward. Every time.

~*~*~*~*~

you who have been traveling so long

"Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast - NO! It's Christmas! Turkey! Although, having met your mother, nutloaf would be more appropriate."

Rose is staring at him like he's completely lost it. He laughs, hears the edge of mania to it, and oh, this is not good. He hadn't meant to go through bodies so quick. Regenerations get dodgier as you get older, and after that mishap between fifth him and sixth him, not to mention eighth him destroying Gallifrey, and then the blasted Daleks coming back, and oh, this is not good at all.

He's trying, he's trying so hard to keep it together, especially with Rose right there, but he can't. Not when seventh him is muttering in his head about his obsession with food, and ninth him (all sharp and loud and hurting so very much) is still pissed at Rose for coming back and looking into the heart of the TARDIS and bringing Captain Jack back to life . . .

"WoUld yOu liKe a FiSHie?"

And suddenly, there's thousands of floating fish swimming around the TARDIS. Rose is nowhere to be found, though - in her place is a girl he's caught glimpses of before, after his regenerations. More than an edge of Mania, then. More like wishing for some salt water and getting an ocean.

"'Ello there. I'd say it's been a while, but it really hasn't. Cup of tea? Do you drink tea? I've probably got coffee or water or Aeolian pella juice. Ooh, there's that bottle of quapang nectar Ace nicked from that little shop in Rhodes, they'll never miss it."

The girl - anthropomorphic personification, really, but who's splitting hairs at a time like this? - cocks her head and perches on the TARDIS console, giggling.

"NevEr tRied iT. I LikE tEa. IT's vERy gOoD. FlOwErS aRe sO fleEtiNg, arEn'T tHeY?"

"Flower, flower, what could you be . . . OH, Rose! Where is she?"

"ArOunD. YoUr sHIp iS sInGing. DiD yoU knOw tHat?" she says, popping the tiny stream of bubbles coming from a nearby fish one by one. "ShE sOunDs liKe mY bIg brOthEr."

"Yeeeeah. Okay. Sure. But back to Rose - is she okay? Where did she go?"

She begins to fade around the edges - Cheshire grins and Alice in Wonderland make a lot more sense now, and boy, does he have a new appreciation for old Lewis - fish winking out of existence along with her.

"NoT wHeRe. WhEn. BacK hOme. FiNd heR laTer. DoN't fOrGEt thE aPple oR yoU'lL miSs tHe baNanAs."

Only her eyes are left, and the mismatched green and blue slide into alignment for one brief moment. And he smiles: they are both of them at peace for that moment.

"Lots to see, Doctor. Don't hide from the wolves."

His regenerations flash before his eyes as she disappears. White hair, black hair, opera cape, long scarf, blonde hair, curly hair, question marks, ascot, leather jacket, and finally, red trainers and glasses. But they don't stop there. He sees three more - plaid jumper, ginger hair (yes! Finally!), and a silhouette of indiscriminate gender. Huh, he'd never considered regenerating as a woman before - various discomforting biological processes such as the possibility of bearing children had put him off. The last regeneration fades before his eyes, and is replaced by a girl in a blue jumper and a worried look on her face. And he smiles.

Rose. Time to see Rose again. That sounds good - Rose and a nice cup of tea.

~*~*~*~*~

*wipes forehead* Four new fandoms I have never ever written before, and crossovers out the wazoo. Needless to say, gang, feedback is forever loved, hugged, squeezed and called George.

In order, the songs used are: "Stars and the Moon" by Jason Robert Brown (sung by Audra McDonald); "Thursday's Child" by David Bowie; "Shimmer Like a Girl" by Veruca Salt; "Stolen Thing" by Noe Venable; "Girl from the North Country" by Bob Dylan; "Bells for Her" by Tori Amos; and "Sisters of Mercy" by Leonard Cohen.

Dear Yuletide Author . . .

2008-11-12T05:14:36Z

First of all, thank you so much for writing for me! Yuletide is probably the best time of the year, and I look forward to it so much. Honestly, I will adore anything at all you write for me - just the fact that I'm getting a story in one of my tiny little fandoms is just brilliant.

But if you'd like a better idea of my likes and dislikes, here you go:

Likes:

- Banter of any kind. It can be the friendly kind or the I'd-cheerfully-rip-your-rib-cage-out-and-use-it-as-a-hat kind. It can be sly and in-character (Jossian banter, Sorkin-esque banter, New Who-type banter) or it can just be two people snarking at each other in general.

- Slash. No really, I have my slash goggles locked and loaded for virtually all of my fandoms. That being said, I'm absolutely not opposed to het. And hey, you can always try a nice threesome and make me break the sound barrier with my squeeing.

- Characterization. You want to see what would happen if Sean and Christian opened up a B&B together instead of becoming plastic surgeons, have at it. Just convince me that they're the same guys I've been seeing on my television every week, and we're good. You want Jake and Elwood to bond with their cellmates by listening to bad disco? Or decide that Justin Crowe's going to forsake his whole world-domination thing in favor of becoming the Carnivale's new tarot card reader? Uh uh - then we have problems. I heart these characters, flaws and all. Seriously - character-driven stories = A+.

- Twisty sexual dynamics. Go ahead, get as porny and smutty as you want. Make it voyeuristic, incestuous, borderline BDSM, full of power games and dub-con, threesomes or moresomes, have fun with the setting - just have at it.

- Missing scenes, character studies, and post-eps. They're like my crack. I can't get enough.

Dislikes:

- Fluff. Sure, I like a happy ending once in a while, but give me a hopelessly ambiguous or dark and creepifying ending any day. Stories involving insulin overload, gratutitous h/c, and rape=love make me want to cry and throw things.

- Hardcore BDSM, watersports, hardcore bloodplay, scat, non-con or anything like that. I like kink, but there's a difference between "using a feather and using the whole chicken".

- Most conventional pairings. If it's canon and het, chances are I'm not too fond of it. C'mon - surprise me!

- ABSOLUTELY NO MPREG. NONE. FOR ANY REASON, INCLUDING COMIC POTENTIAL.

- OCs. I'm really more of a canon fan, so staying within the pool of canon characters is generally a good idea with me.

- Bad spelling/grammar. Seriously, spell-check is EVERYONE'S friend. And a good beta reader is worth their weight in gold. I'm not trying to be a terrible person or make generalizations, but the difference between an "okay" story and a "great" story can be in good spelling and grammar.

Regarding the specific requests - which I tried to make as helpful and detailed as possible:

1) Swingtown: This show is my total guilty pleasure. I adore everything about it, and while yes, Tom/Trina/Janet is my OT3, I love most of the other characters as well. Stories involving anyone but Laurie, Roger, and the younger kids (BJ, Ricky, and Sam) will make me turn cartwheels. I think the cheese factor of the show overshadowed a lot of tricky dynamics - especially with Bruce and Susan's introduction to polyamory - so I'd love it if you ecplored a little of that in the course of your story. And really, I cannot stress enough - Tom, Trina, and Janet are LOVE. Anything at all with them will make me deliriously happy.

2) Burn Notice: I've read some great fic for this show, but everything seems to focus on Michael. I adore Michael, don't get me wrong, but what would be brilliant would be something from Fi or Sam's POV. Backstory, relationship dynamics, banterfests, anything that gives me more of a sense of who they are. Especially Sam. Sam = PURE LOVE. Should you feel like shipping, I could seriously, seriously get behind some kinky Sam/Fi (with optional Michael).

3) Indiana Jones: This movie is my childhood, and Indy/Marion was one of my first ships. Backstory for them would make my year, but I'd also love to get a look at either Mutt or Henry and what they've learned in their travels. I adore the underlying religious themes in IJ - Raiders and Crusade, obviously, but Crystal Skull has a little of it - and some ruminations on faith, belief, obsession, quests would be lovely.

4) Jeff and Michael Shaara's Civil War Trilogy: I have to quote my post from last year, because it hasn't changed - "should you write this for me, I will quite possibly declare myself your slave for life. Anything with Mira Hancock would be brilliant, though I'm heavily inclined toward a Mira/Win/Lew threesome. Porn or no porn, if you write my three favorite characters in an adult relationship and in-character historically, I will love you forever. And James Longstreet, in any form, is absolute gold." Oh, and bethbethbeth wrote me this gorgeous story in this fandom last year, which is, to my knowledge, the ONLY Shaaraverse fic written.

Thank you so much for bearing with my yammering. Happy Yuletide!

POEM: Howl (for Allen Ginsberg)

2008-09-26T02:01:39Z

I admit it - I've never written a poem before. I can't rhyme, I can't use structure, and everything comes out in full sentences no matter what I do. But then, around last December, I wrote my final paper for AmLitII on Ginsberg and the Beats, and while my prof was droning on in class, I wrote the beginning of this. I finished it this weekend. I adore Ginsberg (especially Howl and Kaddish), and this is my piddling little attempt at expressing it.

Much love to Em and Bethii for first, not hating it, and second, for being so ridiculously feedbacky. *squishes*

Howl (for Allen Ginsberg)

For the Beats
those crazy-smart, on-the-road, naked lunchers of marijuana, peyote, rotgut hooch/
who fucked with conceptions of god and God, with squared wannabe hepcats in the background saying they dug it man/
who replaced requiem aeternum with kaddish and found Buddha and Tangiers only after losing life, love, sanity/
who took the Rockland and Pilgrim State exits off the highway to Hell, but got stuck on the jughandle of censorship circle/
who got kicked out of Columbia, but are now being taught to a new generation of disenchanted punk anarchists wearing their Che t-shirts, for whom McCarthy is a punchline, but Cheney is a nightmare/
who rocked the Six Gallery, not CBGB's, and screamed viva la vie boheme long before it was ever set to music/
who were faggots and queers, lezzies and dykes, straight but never ever narrow/
who were Blakean and Dylanesque, but couldn't see the leaves for the grass/
and who saw Nirvana in nature and Moloch in machines.

For the Boomers
those children of the Great War and the atomic bomb/
who were concieved in the ashes of Alamogordo and screamed out their birthpangs into the dust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki/
who supported McCarthy because they didn't know any better and JFK because they'd known worse/
who were my mother, my father, my soul-siblings in song if not belief/
who marched on Birmingham, Washington, and Memphis to bring a 300-year struggle to some attempt at equilibrium/
who sang goodnight, Saigon, because Charlie should never have gotten their bloodsweattearslives, but it was supposed to have been a just war/
who made British boys and Southern girls into a new pantheon of gods, sacrificing convention and the-way-things-were on the altars of purple haze and hell no we won't go/
who held fast to Mary Jane and Lady H while letting slip the chains on their minds, freeing them for psychedelia or psychology, whichever came first/
and who ran screaming from the very conservatism they would hold so dear twenty years later.

For the Bush Generation
those caged children of the urban jungle and ivory-towered suburbs/
who have become chained to their credit cards, cell phones, and connectivity, carrying the world (wide web) in their pockets/
who have been instructed in the counting of calories and the mimicry of soldiers, glorifying an industry of fallen idols and skewed ideals/
who could not point out Afghanistan or Iraq on a map, but know that all Muslims are terrorists and that we're fighting to bring peace and democracy to nations who plotted to fly more planes into skyscrapers/
who watched the towers fall and the levees break from the sanctity of a classroom, just like their President/
who should have studied Vietnam as their Great War and never understood that they were doomed to repeat it/
who became so inundated with truthiness and politispeak that they forgot why they should be frightened of Big Brother watching/
who just wanted to know what love is, but were told that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that they should stay the gender imposed at birth/
and who looked everywhere but heavenward for salvation they didn't want to need in the first place.

This is for you, and all you have taught me;
that I am not a pretty girl, but that love is all around, and I should get it while I can/
that I am enlightened, but true wisdom comes from those times when you wake up and you can't remember what you did last night/
that I am and always will be my parents' daughter, but that I'll learn to live more than a little beyond their command/
that I want to believe, but I'm not sure in what, or that I'd be prepared for the answers I didn't find/
that I like my politics blue, my energy green, and my food without orange, but that it's a down market and you can't always get what you want/
that I'm not on the edge when it comes to straightness, but you can just say yes and it doesn't make you a bad person/
that I've seen the line that divides genius and insanity and never crossed it, even though we're all a little mad here/
that I hold a college degree and a full-time job, but I don't think I'll ever achieve the American Dream, because Bobby and John and Martin took it with them/
and that in Rockland and Paterson, Tangiers and Manhattan, out on the road and far among the stars
the howl echoes on.

Feedback is, as ever, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

Porn Battle 6.0 Entries

2008-08-19T20:30:34Z

So, oxoniensis hosts her Porn Battle every year, and it's always a fantastic time. I managed four entries, two of them in brand-new fandoms to me, surprisingly enough:

"It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" (Swingtown, Tom/Janet)

Oh God, she was really in for it this time.

Because he'd kissed her. Pot brownies and half-naked games of Twister at the Millers' cabin were one thing, but Tom Decker had kissed her, while they were utterly sober. And the most surprising thing about it hadn't been how soft his mouth was, or how gentle his hands on her face had been, but the fact that he'd called her beautiful.

Roger hadn't called her beautiful in years, since before they had Ricky. Tom had seen her at the pool, back in her own fussy clothes and not that gorgeous dress of Trina's, makeup removed and everything, and called her beautiful.

Maybe that was why she found herself back at the Decker house the next morning, in an old blouse that was a tad too small, and her best red and white skirt. Maybe it was why she rang the bell and stayed, instead of scurrying away.

"Janet!" She must have caught him about to head out for a flight; crisp blue jacket buttoned, his cap tucked under one arm. "I'm sorry, but you caught us at a bad time. Trina's out shopping and I'm about to leave for this week's Tokyo run."

"Tom, wait. I just - I wanted to tell you, ask you, really . . ."

She trips over her words - God, she's always doing that around Tom and Trina! - and her palms are starting to sweat, so she grips her skirt in her fists and blurts out what she really came here to say.

"Did you mean it?"

Surprise flashes across his face, but he doesn't need to ask what she means. He steps back, motions her inside, and closes the door, leaning against the wall. She's never been this close to him, not since the cabin, when he beat her at Twister by flashing those gorgeous blue eyes of his at her and knocking her foot off the red circle.

"Do you have to ask?"

"Yes," she breathes out, placing one hand on his chest to steady herself. It's not an excuse to touch him, she tells herself.

She's such a liar.

He bends to kiss her, and oh, this is nothing like last night. Last night was sweet and fleeting, and this is Tom, hands threading through her hair, tongue sweeping through her mouth. She hits the wall, hard enough to jolt, but she doesn't care. His mouth has moved to her ear, muttering the filthiest words in her ear, and it's turning her on like nothing ever has.

"Know what I'd do to you? Could fuck you here and now, up against the doorway, pull your skirt up, put my mouth on you. Roger doesn't eat pussy, does he, Janet? I'd lick you until you screamed. You're so gorgeous when you're screaming, all flushed and tense. Could fuck that tension right out of you, couldn't I?"

He thumbs open the top two buttons on her blouse, and she shudders, hand lacing through his blonde hair. It's softer than Roger's, silkier. His mouth trails down to the top of her breasts, and he grins as she gasps.

"Your breasts are fantastic, you know. You filled out that dress last night better than Trina ever did. Don't think she didn't notice. You think that all the time, right? That no one notices you, mousy little Janet, huh?"

"Why - why would they?", she grits out, back arching against the wood of the door, her breasts pushing out of her blouse like she's some streetwalker.

He shoves the material of her bra to the side, and closes his mouth around one nipple. He doesn't let up until he keeps his promise and she screams for him. She's soaking wet against his thigh, and he pulls up her leg to tuck around his waist, rocking his erection against her. There's still that line, she thinks dimly. He won't fuck her because he promised Trina to stay faithful. But his loyalty apparently stretches to making her come fully clothed against his front door, his uniform still on.

As she comes down, he kisses her again. She raises an eyebrow - he didn't get off - but he shakes his head.

"I know you, Janet. You won't cheat on Roger - you're better than that."

She's not sure if she should be disappointed that he's right.

~*~*~*~

"if you want a way out" (Mad Men, Don/Joan)

She's not a girl you buy jewelry for.

With Betty, it was strands of freshwater pearls from Tiffany's, worn with some of the couture dresses she still had from her modeling days. With Rachel, it was Harry Winston diamonds, worn to remind him that while she could afford it herself, it pleased her to have him buy her things. With Midge, it was gold and emerald bracelets, far too expensive for her bohemian tastes, but that she still kept when she ran off to Europe with whats-his-name.

Men buy women gold earrings for their birthday, diamond rings for their engagement, pearl necklaces for anniversaries, because it shows the women belong to them. He never buys jewelry for Joan, because he knows as well as anyone that no man will ever own Joan Holloway like that.

He buys her shoes instead: a pair of sky-high Christian Dior sandals Betty was oohing and aahing over one day. They're silver, size 8 and a half, and he buys them with the intention of fucking her in Roger's office with them on. Maybe on Roger's desk, Joan wearing only those jaw-dropping black lace panties she has.

Reality, for once, is so much better.

They're in Duck's office. Everyone's left early for the Christmas holiday, and they're the only ones in the building. Roger's in Chicago with Mona and the family, Betty and the kids are at home and he's not expected until much later tonight, and Joan is perched on the conference table in nothing but those silver shoes and a smile. She'd left a little trail for him to follow from the elevator down the hallway into Duck's office, and he's been rock-hard ever since he saw her panties dangling from the coffee machine.

She smiles as he reaches her, that gorgeous, cat-full-of-cream smile that's got just enough edge to it. He lets her pull him down by his tie, and shudders as she lies down on the table, legs spread. God, she's wet - auburn curls darkening as she extends a leg over his shoulder. Joanie's never been shy about what she wants, and what she wants now is his mouth on her. Not that he minds.

His tongue delves into her cunt, making her shudder and moan above him. He works his tongue first deep into her, then shallow licks around her pussy as she squirms and directs him. She's the first woman who's managed to successfully order him around in bed. A press of one stiletto heel to his ass makes his cock jump, and he follows her directions. Suck on her clit. Scrape teeth gently over it, then start tongue-fucking her again.

She shrieks when he inserts two fingers while scraping his teeth over her clit. It's always more fun to take her by surprise, make her swear like a sailor and whine out "Don, Don, fuck, please, oh God please fuck me".

He turns her over on her belly, then slides her down off the table so she's bent over, arms on the top. God, she's beautiful, the curve of her ass, her long legs extending down to those heels planted in the carpet. He fucks her the way she likes it - the way she demands it - fast and rough, one hand playing at her breasts, the other rubbing at her clit. She lets him come first, then drops to her knees and sucks him off, tasting herself and moaning like it's the first time.

He'll never be able to keep her, but he's fool enough to try.

~*~*~*~

"Riders on the Storm" (Doctor Who/Torchwood, Nine/Tosh)

She learns - as Jack has told her - that when you travel with the Doctor, your name is woven into some of the oldest stories in the universe.

On Laloptera, home of the greatest historians in the universe, historians tell of a "tosh-ee-koh" venturing out into the greatest of storms, placing her hand upon the lightning, singing to the thunder, and walking out under a calm sky.

Jack has warned her about Satellite Five, the Daleks, and the Master, and the lure of the Doctor. But oh, Jack hadn't told her this. How the Doctor's anger transformed him into the most avenging of angels, and stripped away everything that was even slightly awkward - or, indeed, human - about him.

"How dare they? You lot have already learned that slavery isn't the way to go, and if a bunch of stupid apes can figure it out, why can't they?"

She placed a hand on his back, and it was the first time she'd touched him anywhere but his hand. As he turned around, he didn't need to vocalize what was in his eyes - don't, or you'll get burned - but Tosh spent enough time in UNIT's prison to learn to play with fire. She laced her fingers in his, and leaned up to kiss him.

There's more than one kind of fire, and she found herself lifted against him, his blue eyes - older than seas and skies on worlds she'd never seen - asking only one question. Her answer is, of course, yes, and he seals his mouth to hers, tongue licking hotly at the seam to her lips and then sliding against hers. She gasps, locking her legs around his waist, and runs her hands over his cropped hair. It's softer than she expects; everything about him is sharp, designed for utility and not comfort. The leather of his jacket scrapes against her silk blouse, and the snap of his jeans digs into the flesh of her inner thigh.

He flashes her one of those trademark grins as he sets her down again, then removes the jacket to lay it down on the sand. Tosh kicks off her shoes - flats, the one concession she has to this life of running - and starts to shimmy out of her blouse. His hands assist her in getting it halfway down her arms, then flick the snap of her bra and divest her of that along with her shirt.

He's still fully clothed, but doesn't give her the opportunity to return the favor as he runs a finger over the cuve of one breast, grinning at her self-conscious shiver. He pulls her down to kneel opposite him, and his mouth is on her breast, hellbent on making her come from that alone. His teeth scrape at her nipple, then his mouth trails over to her other breast, licking and biting until a scream tears itself from her.

"Good girl," he says, his hand sliding up her skirt. He laughs wickedly as he encounters her lack of panties, and she kisses his amusesment right out of him, shoving him onto his back and straddling him. His hand remains between her legs, thumb flicking her clit as he sinks two fingers into her, but she's got just enough coherancy left to pull his jumper over his head and unsnap the button to his jeans.

He wrings one orgasm out of her while she negotiates removing his jeans, single-mindedly rubbing her clit and fucking her with his fingers until she tightens around them in surprise. Then he guides himself into her, rolling her over so that she's on top, and oh, he is a mind-reader then. At her nod, he takes hold of her hips and begins fucking her, hard, encouraging her to move faster in counterpoint.

Looking down at him, the fierce concentration on his face, she thinks she knows why Jack loved this Doctor best. She knows how it works - he's the same man, he just looks different - but there's something primal, something about this Doctor that she's never seen in the one Martha knew and spoke of. This Doctor hates fiercely and loves even more fiercely. If she's not careful, she could easily throw away everything to stay with him.

As she comes again, equations behind her eyes and in his voice, she makes her decision. When they return to the city, she asks the scribes for one thing: a copy of the "tosh-ee-koh" legend written in English. She wishes she could stay with him, but a letter, left on the TARDIS console, will have to do.

Find the one you can share the storm with, my Doctor. London is nice this time of year.

~*~*~*~

"The Masochism Tango" (Profit, Profit/Gail)

G&G is deserted, they're 12 hours from one of the biggest deals of the year, and Gail is perched on his desk, skirt around her hips, asking him questions.

"If I ask you to do something, will you do it for me?"

He could debate with himself. Is it worth getting involved with his secretary? Worth the body count if and when it ever comes out? What does he get out of it, other than getting laid? What does she get out of it?

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Jim knows he has trust issues - that he's never been truly honest in a relationship - and that, as partners go, he could do (and has done) much worse than Gail Koner.

"Yes."

"Good. Unzip your pants and take your cock out."

Direct, isn't she? He hesitates, and that's all she needs to brace herself against the desk and plant one heeled pump directly on his groin. It's not as bad as Kelly's stilettos, but Gail has more control than Kelly ever did, in a few different meanings of the word. She presses down delicately, and he can't stop the gasp she causes.

"Did you hear me, Jim? I told you to do something."

Her foot eases out of its perfect arch, and the heel presses harder into his cloth-covered groin. Oh, she's got beautiful feet - he doesn't usually fixate on body parts, not like he's ever considered himself an "ass man" or a "breast man", but Gail's tiny little feet exercising such control over him is attractive, in its own way. Better show a little humility, though, before she presses too hard. He doesn't actually like pain, but toying with the edge of it is fun, especially when you're playing with someone who knows the game.

"All right," he breathes, relaxing a little as she removes her foot. He unzips his pants, folding the seperated halves of his fly down so they don't get in the way, and pulls his dick out. If Gail's surprised he doesn't wear underwear, then she doesn't show it. "What next?"

Gail slides herself up onto the desk, skirt hiked up around her hips, and rests her heels on the arms of his desk chair. "Keep your hands on the chair. You don't get to touch yourself until I say so."

Oh. She does know him, then, knows him well enough to smirk at the apparently-intrigued look on his face. His cock jumps - an interesting and novel sensation - at the sight of Gail sliding her pantyhose down her legs, followed by her panties. They're plain white cotton high-cut, absolutely what he'd expect her to wear to the office, and he's a little disappointed as she folds them together and places them on the desk, out of his reach.

She's got his undivided attention, though, when she replaces her legs to either side of him, allowing him to look at her cunt, using her fingers to spread apart the damp curls. Her hands are delicate, but show no hesitation as she circles the tip of her opening with her middle finger, dipping it shallowly inside herself and trailing the wetness she finds up to her clit. He can feel his breathing start to get faster, and his hands clench against the chair as he watches her rub her clit eagerly, going straight for it unlike many women he's encountered. They'd toy with their pussies, trail fingers over outer and inner lips and graze at their clits, but Gail goes right for what she wants.

Good girl.

She lets out a series of squeaky gasps as the tempo picks up, and he makes the mistake of raising his eyes to her face. Oh, she's delicious like this, head tilted back, exposing her throat unthinkingly. He wonders if she's doing it deliberately, knowing him and his proclivities as well as she does. She couldn't have hit on a better temptation for him, and he hardens further, cock pressing uncomfortably against his suit pants. She licks her lips, and he unconsciously groans, low under his breath.

Her eyes flick open, and she grins at him. "Something you want, Jim?"

Fuck, yes. He wants to pull her forward and bury his face between her legs until she screams. He wants to push her back and fuck her until she blacks out. He wants her against the wall and bent over his desk and any way he can get her, really.

Luckily, she's got nothing against indulging his wants. All of them.

Feedback, as everyone knows, is loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

MIX: Shawn/Hunter - The "Don't Forget to Breathe" EP

2008-04-30T18:57:57Z

This is a little mix inspired by Angy's story Faith, which I couldn't help mixing to, as soon as I read it. It just evoked such a musical tone and style. All quotes below are hers, taken from the story. All music belongs to the respective artists.

Shawn/Hunter: The "Don't Forget to Breathe" EP

1) Further On (Up the Road) - Bruce Springsteen

After weeks of only being at the TV tapings, Shawn had finally managed to get away from home for some extra shows. He had told his wife something about the company asking him and Hunter to do a few DX matches because people were still eating it up. Truth was that nobody had asked them. It had just been the perfect excuse to get to spend a few days with each other again. And nights.

(Now I've been out in the desert, just doing my time/Searching through the dust, looking for a sign/If there's a light up ahead, well, brother I don't know/But I got this fever burning in my soul/So let's take the good times as they go/And I'll meet you further on up the road . . .)

2) You and Me - Lifehouse

“Sometimes I wonder what keeps drawing us to each other.”

He heard Hunter chuckle quietly, “What? My charms and good looks aren’t enough of a reason?”

“I’m trying to be serious here…,” Shawn stated, some frustration probably showing in his voice that caused the other man to be quiet again and let him continue. “You and me, it’s just… Sometimes I just wish things could be different, you know?”

(Cause it's you and me, and all of the people/With nothing to prove, nothing to lose/And it's you and me and all of the people/And I don't know why, but I can't take my eyes off of you . . .)

3) God's Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash

“You call this lucky? We’re sneaking around behind our families’ backs. We always have to be careful that nobody finds out.” He threw up his hands. “Heck, in church I can’t help but wonder when lightning’s gonna strike me down.”

Shawn hadn’t even noticed how Hunter had also moved from the bed, until he felt the younger man wrap his arms around him again from behind. “We still have each other.”

(You can run on for a long time, run on for a long time/Run on for a long time, but sooner or later God'll cut you down/Sooner or later God'll cut you down/Go tell that long-tongued liar, go and tell that midnight rider/Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter/Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down . . .)

4) Breathe - Alexi Murdoch

“This isn’t about her, or Rebecca, you know? It’s about us.”

Another step that closed some more of the distance between them, but Shawn didn’t stop him.

“Look, a long time ago we had to make a decision. We’d probably make a different one now. But then again, maybe not. One way or the other, you know as well as I do that the result would’ve been the same.”

(And the answer that you're seeking for the question that you've found/Drives you further to confusion as you lose your sense of ground/So don't forget to breathe, don't forget to breathe/Your whole life is here, no eleventh hour reprieve/So don't forget to breathe/Keep your head above water . . .)

5) Teardrop - Massive Attack

Leaning his forehead against Shawn’s, Hunter whispered, “I’ll always have enough faith for the both of us. I promise.”

(Love, love is a verb, love is a doing word/Fearless on my breath/Gentle impulsion shakes me, makes me lighter/Fearless on my breath/A teardrop on the fire, but fearless on my breath . . .)

FIC: you say I took the Name in vain (House MD, House/Wilson-ish)

2008-03-10T20:11:15Z

Title: you say I took the Name in vain
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy)
Rating: PG-13, for language. Nothing too shocking if you’ve seen the show, though.
Fandom/Pairing: House M.D. James Wilson, with a bit of House/Wilson at the end.
Disclaimer: Despite my most sincere wishes to the contrary, I do not own House. My name isn’t David Shore or Bad Hat Harry Productions. Neither do I own - again, despite my sincerest wishes - Robert Sean Leonard, or his fictional counterpart, James Wilson. Please to not sue, because you won’t get anything but my extensive student loan debt and a bunch of books if you do. Oh, and Lane. She’s the only thing that’s mine.
Spoilers/Warnings: For “Histories” (106). Nothing past S3 for spoilers. Consider yourself warned for character death, though not of a main canon character.
Author’s Notes: Written for wilson_fest prompt #24 - Wilson gets a tattoo. Title and quoted portion below from Leonard Cohen’s brilliant, overused “Hallelujah”. Much, much love and hugs to carla_scribbles for her brilliant last-minute beta skills and for letting me wibble about this for two months straight.

~*~*~*~

You say I took the Name in vain, but I don’t even know the Name
And if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word, it doesn’t matter which you’ve heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah . . .

~*~*~*~

“Yo, Lane! Your 2:00 canceled, but your guy’s on the phone and wants to know if you can fit him in.”

Good God, she’s loud. We have an intercom. We’ve had it for all three years Jenny’s been our receptionist. She knows damn well how to use it, since she does it when Alec’s in - no sane person wants to piss off the boss. You think she uses it any other time?

Not so much.

I finish autoclaving my equipment and wait until the machine cycles down before replacing it on the table. Sticking my head out the door, I return fire.

“Tell him I’m free, Jen! I’ve got Sketch at 5, so if it’s anything bigger than some cover-up work or a small piece, he’s going to have to come back next week.”

“Okay! He’ll be here in ten!”, she yells, juggling our design files, fresh from the copier, and making her way back to her desk and her internet poker game.

Whoa. Did Jenny just let her favorite target for gossip go by without a single comment? I’m shocked - she usually can’t shut up when he calls. Has to know why I have to do all his tats. Why I’m on a first-name basis with him. Why he’s such an outrageous flirt. Jen thinks he’s got the hots for me, but it’s actually never been like that. He’s funny and tips obscenely well - what the man does in his free time is none of my business.

He’s pretty infamous around here. The first time he came in to check us out, six years ago, he was wearing jeans and a Motley Crue shirt. Gave Alec his business card and told him his bronchitis medicine was outdated and to pick up a new one at this clinic he worked at. Alec and I dubbed him “Doctor Feelgood” after that, but never to his face.

Doc’s got four tats, total, and I’ve worked on three of them. I did cover-up work on his third, and designed his fourth myself, but I’ve never touched what he tells me was his first. Doesn’t mind chatting while I’m working - and I’ve mentioned the funny, right? - but I learned real quick to not mention that particular piece.

Then again, I can understand. Religion is a private thing, even when the manner of expression of that religion is forbidden.

I replace the inks and wipe down my table, stripping off my stained gloves for a fresh pair. The intercom buzzes, and Jenny’s voice comes out crackling. “Doctor bzzzzzzzzzt bzzzzzzt bzzzzzzt here. Bzzzzzt to park bzz bzzzzzzzt. Should I tell bzzzzzzt Brick bzzzzzzt?”

Luckily, I speak intercom.

“If he wants to park closer than Poughkeepsie, tell him he can have Alec’s spot. Brick’s in his office, if you need him for billing. I can wait.”

“Bzzzzzt wants to bzzzzzzt.”

“No problem. Send him back.”

Doc’s apparently not up to fighting with Brick over his usual discount. As he opens the door, I can see why. The man’s got circles under his eyes deeper than the Marianas Trench and a tear across the right side of his shirt. Sure, he’s a doctor. He keeps crazy hours, but really, he’s come in after 20-hour shifts smelling like disinfectant and stale coffee and looked better than this.

“Afternoon, Lane,” he says, hanging up his coat on the door hook and heading straight for the table. “Been a while.”

Yeah, it has. Eight months, actually, but it’s not completely unheard-of, even for a regular like him.

I was surprised that he even has any tats at all, but I should know better, considering the Escher back piece I’ve got under my suit jacket. Everyone makes fun of me for dressing so corporate at a tattoo parlor, but hey, I work two jobs. I don’t have time to change. Also, it’s useful in other ways. Nervous customers - especially Mrs. Soccer Mom taking little Suzie to get that first butterfly tattoo - walk into my office, see my pulled-back hair and plain blue suit, and immediately relax.

And so do attractive, sleep-deprived oncologists, as it turns out.

~*~*~*~

“Kinda early on a Friday for you, James,” I say, shoving at my rolled-up shirt cuffs. “Did you free the psych ward patients and escape in an ambulance?”

James - who never, ever, wants to be called “Doctor Wilson” in my office - shakes his head and sits on the table. “I wish. I haven‘t plotted a good breakout in a while. No, my boss told me to go home.”

“From what I know about her, that’s kind of like Christmas, right? Or, well - Chanukkah.”

At the mention of Chanukkah, his gaze drops around the vicinity of his shoelaces. Uh-oh, not a good sign. When he gets bottled-up and avoids looking at you, it usually precludes a later meltdown of epic proportions. We do not talk about that night a few years ago I had to talk a drunken James out of tattooing a picture of a donkey and the name “House” onto his ass. Not that I’d have minded seeing it, but it would have been awkward trying to explain to his wife at the time why I let him get such a stupid tattoo. Or my boss. Or him, when he sobered up.

“What happened?” I ask, rummaging through my desk for his file.

He rubs absently at the base of his neck and doesn’t answer for a minute. “I lost my temper with a patient. They were refusing treatment, and I kind of went off on them.”

“Everyone loses their temper sometimes. I mean, if I were a doctor, I’d scream at people all day long. People are stupid, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I don’t lose my temper. I’m Mr. Nice Guy. I get hugs and tears and thank-you’s. They don’t come to me to get screamed at.”

True. I wouldn’t want to be yelled at by James - he’s so calm most of the time that it’s a shock when he does yell - but more than that, I don’t think I want to get into this discussion. He’s got a perfectly good therapist that he pays a hell of a lot more than he pays me to listen to his problems. It’s not that I don’t want to help, but I’m just not equipped for this.

“And you don’t come see me to talk about work.” I say, giving him the out. “So what’s it going to be? New tat?”

He tugs at the knot of his tie. “Not exactly. I want you to finish my left bicep for me.”

Oh shit. Shit. That tattoo. The one nobody’s allowed to touch. Not Brick, to sharpen the bled-together lines of the edges, or Alec, to touch up the faded script. Stuff they’d have done for very little money and I’d probably do gratis, if it meant getting to work on a piece like that.

It’s gorgeous, really. Most people’s first tattoos are crappy pieces they pick off a wall while drunk off their ass on Spring Break in South Beach. Happens to all of us - I’ve got an Aries symbol on my ankle that Brick loves to make fun of. Not James, though: his is a Torah scroll with the final two lines of the Kaddish and a blank space across the top of the scroll. I’d kill to touch it up - highlight the copper color of the scroll, re-ink the words, anything. It’s just that awesome a piece of work.

Never in a million years would I have expected him to ask me to work on it.

“Lane?” His voice snaps my attention back to the concerned-looking man in front of me. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

I sit down on my stool and slide in front of him, sketchbook in one hand and pencil in the other. I need an idea of what he wants before I start inking - customers tend to have radically differing ideas about design than artists do. And of course, the customer usually likes to see what you’re thinking of doing before you start sticking needles into their skin.

“Finish it how?”

“Define the edges of the scroll. Re-ink the last line where the words are blurring into the bottom. Maybe add some white ink to the background of the scroll - make it look more like paper. And well - do you think you can reapproximate the text? The letters?”

He speaks calmly. Reasonably. Just the right amount of comfort in his tone to disguise anything that might be amiss. Probably the same voice he uses on his cancer patients. But he still isn’t telling me the whole story. He didn’t mention the space on the top of the scroll, and it’s going to look incomplete without something there.

“You know script work isn’t my specialty. I can do the overlay, but if you want new text, it’s going to look different than the previous work. If you had a sample of the new text, I could probably work with it.”

“Can I borrow your sketchbook?” he asks, holding out his hand.

I pass it over. He hesitates for a moment, but soon the pencil is moving over the blank page. Smooth, deft strokes, using the edge for shading and the tip for fine work. After four years at Moore and eight working for Alec and the District Court, I can recognize a fellow artist when I see one.

He finishes, his other hand gripping the edge of the book unconsciously, as if he’s anchoring himself to the drawing. He doesn’t move to show me what he’s drawn, and so I gently tilt the book downward so I can get a good look at it.

I may be a lapsed Jew, but I can still read Hebrew. Right to left, the letters are sketched out in a slightly canted style: bet, nun, yod, mem, yod, nun.

Benjamin.

~*~*~*~

Most customers, when I design pieces for them, are very general about what they want. They don’t go into specifics: they want a rose, they have some general ideas about color, but that’s it. It’s up to me as an artist to divine style, detail, realism - and translate that into a design.

Not James.

He’s always been very specific about what he wants (and now that I know he’s an artist, I suspect he did the initial sketches he showed me when I did his other tats) and what he doesn’t want. The first time he walked into my office, he was very straightforward - he wanted a certain design, with specific colors and linework. The rest was up to me.

My style isn’t what you’d normally think a guy would like. It’s usually very flowing, like something out of Waterhouse or a fantasy novel. With James, I’ve adjusted it - bolder strokes, more realism in the sketching - and the result is a pretty awesome blend, if I do say so myself. I get a lot of compliments on the photos of his work that I keep in my scrapbook.

“Do you mind doing the color work first?” he asks, out of the blue. “I kind of - I wanted to save the text for last.”

I shake my head. “No can do. Linework goes on first, then I’ll switch to the mags for coloring. Keeps the linework from bleeding into the color, and vice-versa.”

He takes a deep breath. “All right. I’ll stop being difficult. Sorry.”

“If you’re not-” I founder, for a couple seconds, trying not to say ‘comfortable’, because it’s abundantly clear he isn’t. “ . . . ready, I can just do the color work for the scroll today. Save the text for another session.”

“No. I said I wanted it done. Finished. Might as well do it now - it’s as good a time as any.”

He gives a soft, low laugh, and it’s not particularly happy. I don’t think he’s been drinking, but I’m not sure how else to explain his mood.

“Okay,” I say slowly, setting a new pair of gloves, the inks I’ll need, and my two guns on the tray. I make my motions deliberate, the way you’d surrender a real gun to a cop. “You haven’t-”

“I’m not drunk. Though right now, I’d consider selling my soul for a bottle of whiskey and some sleeping pills.”

Fuck. Self-destructive clients are not fun. I never expected to see this out of James: Doctor Feelgood’s just as depressed as the rest of us, it looks like.

“Sorry. Left my medical and liquor licenses in my other office.”

This time, he does laugh a little out of amusement. It’s nice - does him good. Even under the sweet, understanding exterior, there’s always something too-serious about him. You can just see the chemo and tumors and people constantly dying. They leave fingerprints all over him.

Fingerprints. Smudges. Like the scroll on his arm.

He swings his gaze up to mine, exhaling and rolling his shoulders in a quick, pained movement. The shadows under his eyes have gotten deeper, and his eyes are rimmed in red. He looks like hell, and he knows it.

“My brother’s dead. I haven’t seen him in twelve years - no one has - and now I have to bury him tomorrow. And sit shiva after.”

Oh, God. That’s why his shirt was torn. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out.

I wish I could tell him something. Anything. But any words that would come out of my mouth that might console, or offer comfort, or mourn his brother would only be an imposition. What could I say? ‘I’m sorry’? No, he’s probably heard that all day and not believed a word of it. ‘It’ll be okay’? That would be worse. I’d hug him, but it’d be even more inappropriate.

But finish that tattoo? Yeah. That I can do.

~*~*~*~

I’ve run the new design through the thermal-fax. As James removed his shirt, I had to stifle a smile, but not for that reason. No, it’s that he’s so used to the tattoo process, he’d already shaved his upper arm and had pulled out a tube of hospital-grade antiseptic ointment.

“Want me to just hand over the gun?” I ask, teasing. “It’s not quite color-by-numbers, but you’re a pretty smart guy. You could do it.”

Never let it be said that I don’t fully support inappropriate humor in the face of grief.

He stops swabbing his arm and looks at me. “I - no. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to step on your toes or anything, I just-”

“It’s fine. You - you want to feel useful. I get that.”

Ouch. Oh yeah, that hit a nerve. He puts the swab back on the rolling tray and grips the smooth plastic covering of the table. Doesn’t trust his hands not to shake, and that’s got to hurt, for a doctor.

“Lane, I swear to God, I didn’t let bzzzzzzt security bzzzzzt. Bzzzzt got in bzzzzzz,” the intercom squawks loudly, making us both jump.

I clack over to the unit and pound the call button. “What’re you talking about? You swear to God what?”

The door opens before Jenny can get back to me, and a tall guy walks - no, wait, limps - into the room. I have to snicker at the flames on the bottom of his cane - I should get one for my mother, she‘d love it. His wardrobe’s heavy on the jeans and rock tees, as he’s got a Hendrix tee layered under a Pink Floyd button-down, and either he’s colorblind, or really thinks that pink and purple go together.

“House, how did - no, never mind. You’ve probably got my car LoJacked. Why are you here?”

Oh. So this is House. Taller than I’d expected - the visual of ‘limping twerp’ had somehow translated as ‘shorter than James’ - and thinner. Broad shoulders hidden underneath a half-buttoned suit jacket, blue eyes flicking first to James and then me, assessing immediately.

Interesting.

He ignores James for the time being, and steps closer to me. “Mind if I sit in?”

James answers, and I can practically hear him rolling his eyes from across the room. “Yes. Or does my opinion not matter?”

House turns around in irritation. “When have you ever known me to care about your feelings, Wilson?” He turns back to me. “How about it? I won’t be in your way - I just want to watch. Never seen someone being tattooed before. Could be an enlightening experience.”

I’m almost speechless. It’s kind of like standing in front of a steamroller - all that force and power barreling toward you, and you can either hop on board, get run over, or get the hell out of the way. And good Lord, does he know how to manipulate. He knows that by bypassing James and coming straight to me, it puts all the blame on me if something goes badly.

I slowly nod. “As long as you don’t disrupt me or my customer, Dr. House, you’re welcome to do what you like.”

“Don’t give him the opening, Lane,” James warns, arms folded, the fingers of one hand tapping out a fast rhythm on his bicep. “It never ends well.”

“I’ll behave, all right? I just - I wanted . . .” House trails off, pulling a stool up to the other side of the table and hoisting himself onto it. He overbalances and almost goes tumbling off, but James reaches out a hand to steady him. His eyes flick from James’s hand to his own hand to James’s bicep.

“This is important to you,” he finishes quietly.

~*~*~*~*~

“Thought you were supposed to be an artiste,” House says, using his cane to spin himself counterclockwise on the stool, then balance when he comes to a stop. “Went to the Moore College of Art and Design.”

I don’t look up from the stencil I’m inking. “I am, and I did.”

“Then why do you need the stencil? They didn’t teach you how to color without the lines?”

“She’s not-” James starts, but I tighten my latex-covered grip on his arm.

“It's a guideline. She can also speak for herself, and she’s going to have to smack you if you move again. Moving makes my stencil go all screwy, so unless you want the bet to look more like a smiley face, you’ll quit it.”

“Bet? As in the Hebrew letter for ‘B’ and that would be the last letter of the name Benjamin?” House’s voice comes out low and surprised. “You’re really getting his name on your arm, Jimmy? He cut and run twelve years ago and pissed you off so much you didn’t even tell me he existed!”

James breathes in slowly, half to calm down from House’s diatribe and half to block out the pain receptors. He’s never been one of my clients who doesn’t feel pain when I work on them - he feels it all, and never says a word about if it’s too much.

House is still declaiming, though: “In what universe do you owe him anything?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The one in which he’s my brother. The one in which I watched him piss away three and a half years of college and a full scholarship because E was more fun. The one in which I didn’t listen to David and drag Ben’s sorry ass back to Jersey when we found him squatting in some shithole apartment in Camden twelve years ago.”

God, I don’t think I’ve ever heard James that bitter. Ever. No, not even the night Julie finally signed the papers and I ran into him getting drunk at the bar in the Carlton. Obviously, there was bad blood between him and this brother of his, but how is it any of House’s business?

“Because you’ve gotta be the responsible one, huh? That’s why you’re still beating yourself up twelve years later?”

Okay, fine. Whatever. I’m just the tattoo girl. What do I know? Let them hash it out - I should be concentrating on the linework that’s slowly getting crisper and darker. I finish the outlines of all the letters - both the name and the Kaddish lines - and detach the first needle. I replace it with a thicker needle for the shading in black, and open a new black ink.

Over the buzzing, they’re still going at it.

“Oh, don’t give me that! ‘You’re an only child, House’. ‘You’ve never had anyone dependent on you in your life’. Like it’s really all that different?”

“Yes, it is! It’s different!”

“How?”

“Because you can’t just write off your brother when he’s being an idiot. You don’t get to say ‘to hell with him - let him dig his own grave, if that’s what he wants’. You shouldn’t ever give up on a brother.”

“But you did. It was the only thing you could do - you and David. You both made that decision. And so did your parents. It wasn’t like you did it all by yourself.”

“So we’re all to blame for this? He’s fucking dead, House! Philly PD found him lying in a pool of his own vomit and feces somewhere on Cambria Street! He’d been dealing drugs out of there for years-”

Fuck. I know Philadelphia - I grew up at Fifth and Olney, went to Girls’ High and Moore for art school. Cambria Street in North Philly is just about as low as you can go; there’s a reason they call it “the Badlands”. You don’t really get out of there, unless you’re in a body bag or a police car.

House has stopped spinning, or twirling his cane, or bouncing his tennis ball off the floor, or any of the other irritating habits I’ve discovered in this hour or so we’ve been in this room. He looks right at James, and there’s something in his eyes that I can’t (or possibly, won’t) put a name to.

“I didn’t mean it, you know. I shouldn’t have said that about Ben.”

James makes a low sound in his throat, body tightening up, and he bends to touch his head to House’s - and fuck it, I can’t yell at him for moving. Twisting downward to finish the last curve of the second yod and shading whatever I can reach is all I can do.

~*~*~*~*~

This is James Wilson's aninut, and House is there to bear witness.

They’re sitting, side-by-side on the table, shoulders touching as they bend their heads together to speak in low whispers. I’m pretty sure me and my tattoo gun are simply a minor annoyance to be ignored, but that smile is back on James’s face, so I’m fine with it.

I’d switched to the mags about half an hour ago, and the gold undertones of the scroll are starting to shine through. I’m currently doing a bit of silver highlight to bring out the first of the lines of Kaddish text.

He who makes peace in his heights, may he make peace upon us and upon all Israel

And though I haven’t said Kaddish or gone to synagogue or kept Sabbath in years, I can hear Nana Devorah’s voice teaching it to me, the pitch of her voice sliding up and down. I finish the arch of the aleph, and look over to James and his friend - whose button-down has slid aside to reveal a tear in the Hendrix tee, over his right pectoral.

Keriyah: Greg House, armchair shrink and pain in the tuchis extraordinaire, is a better Jew than I am.

Gently, I finish the last curve on the hei, and wipe the extra ink and blood off with a clean gauze. I rub on the ointment - the last thing he needs is for it to get infected - and tape a bandage to it. As I start cleaning up my supplies, trashing the needles and inks and setting aside the gun, needle bar, and tube to autoclave, I notice that James hasn’t moved. He just sits there, staring at the Rembrandt print above my desk.

House has gotten himself down from the table and retrieved James’s shirt, bracing himself against the edge of the table so he can pull it onto James, one sleeve at a time. I try to tug it over one shoulder, but House gives me a glare that I don’t care to challenge: this is his job now.

Mine is over.

House eases the shirt over James’s arm, careful not to brush the new tattoo, and buttons it. He eases James down off the table, and into his suit jacket. When James is on his own two feet, House turns to me.

“Thank you.” He pulls out his wallet, and counts out an extra hundred, but I hold up my hand. “You- don’t you usually?”

“I’d have done this for free. He didn’t tell me his brother died until after Jenny had worked out payment. Keep it.”

House smiles slightly - an unnerving look, on him - and nods. “I’ll get him home, and tell him to give you a call in a week.”

“It’ll have to be more than that, if he’s sitting shiva.”

“I know.”

He goes to guide James toward the door, and before I know it, I’ve stopped him.

“James?“ He looks over at me, brown eyes gone hazy with endorphins and mourning. “Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba, b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei.”

James bows his head . . . and so does House.

“Amen.”

~*~*~*~

Kaddish - the traditional mourner’s prayer in Judaism.
Aninut - the period of mourning from the time of death to the burial, in which the mourners prepare for the burial.
Aleph - "A", in the Hebrew alphabet.
Bet - "B", in Hebrew.
Hei - "H", in Hebrew.
Keriyah - the ritual tear made over the right side (or left, for parents) of the piece of clothing, honoring the death of a loved one.
Tuchis - Yiddish for "behind" or "buttocks".
Shiva - required seven-day mourning period in which the family of the deceased
Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba, b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei. - May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified, in the world that He created as He willed. (opening lines of the Kaddish)

Feedback is, of course, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

FIC/MIX: "baby, how blue can you get" (House MD, House/Wilson)

2008-02-20T17:12:09Z

Title: baby, how blue can you get?
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy/d_generate_girl)
Rating: NC-17, for adults making with the content and Greg House’s inability to keep his language clean.
Fandom/Pairing: House M.D. House/Wilson.
Disclaimer: Despite my most sincere wishes to the contrary, I do not own House. My name isn’t David Shore or Bad Hat Harry Productions. Neither do I own - again, despite my sincerest wishes - Hugh Laurie or Robert Sean Leonard (oh, if only!). Please to not sue, because you won’t get anything but my extensive student loan debt and a bunch of books if you do.
Spoilers: Only up to “Mirror, Mirror” (405). Takes absolutely no canon afterward into consideration, so actually, you could probably consider it AU.
Author’s Notes: Much, much love to carla_scribbles, for going above and beyond the call of beta-ly duties, and helping me beat this into submission. For someone who swears she’s done with Housefandom, she’s absolutely brilliant at picking apart the brain of Greg House. You = Rockstar, dearest. Originally written for oxoniensis’s Porn Battle V challenge. Started out around 500 words and just kept growing.

~*~*~*~

House hates his singing voice.

It's too everything. Too loud at times, too low in others. When he hasn’t used it for a while, it’s too raspy, too whiny - it cracks and scrapes and doesn't sound good with anything. It's a good blues voice, but everyone knows the music is what's most important about the blues. If you can't feel the blues through the bottleneck whine of B.B. King or the heavy thrum of John Lee Hooker, no pretty lyrics or sweet-voiced singers are going to pound them home.

House doesn't sing when there are people around - he only accompanies, playing counterpoint to everything that's going on. He’ll complain when he’s asked to play, but he’ll do it anyway; it’s nice to be good at something other than medicine.

The occasion doesn't matter. He'll let Cuddy wheedle a few songs out of him at benefits, but only late at night, when most everyone has gone home. He'll pick out an old Robert Johnson riff on his Les Paul while in the middle of a case, but only in his own office, and once or twice in Wilson's. He'll play air drums in the clinic on Brenda's folders, but he never reveals what he's playing.

Being a musician, House has found, provides solace in anonymity.

Singing is too revealing, too intimate. When you sing, you reveal parts of yourself through the melody, and the melody is made for listening. You can lose a drummer, a pianist, a guitarist very, very easily. The untrained ear will go right to the words, ignoring all accompaniment. Singers are stripped bare right when they open their mouth, down past skin and bone to their hearts, their souls.

House doesn't want anyone to see he's even got a heart, much less hold it up for the world to see. Easier, by far, to throw himself into the driving build of a Zeppelin drum solo. To strum out “People Are Strange” or “L.A. Woman” to match the buzzing in his head. To sharpen both his mind and fingers on Chopin's Nocturne in C#. Easier to disappear.

And to emerge again after the last chord dies, letting the silence (sometimes the applause, but mostly the silence) wash over him, cleaner than air.

~*~*~*~*~

Wilson has never been able to master an instrument.

It isn't as if Wilson's never tried - he’s mentioned how he screeched out most of third and fourth grade on the violin, plowed through fifth and sixth on the clarinet, and finished up middle school on the trumpet. David - the brother that’s “still in his life” - tried to teach him to play bass once, when he was fifteen, but Jimmy's fingers caught between the strings and the fretboard, and he needed six stitches in his left index finger. House would use this as ammunition except that Wilson’s had to stitch him up after trying to play “Freebird” once while completely trashed. Not a pretty sight.

But if House is honest, Wilson’s a pretty damn good singer. His voice is a smooth, polished tenor, and he’s still got the clarity that his mother drilled into him.

Mama Wilson had been chazzan, a cantor, her high voice ringing out through the synagogue. She’d always held the hope that one of her boys might inherit her musical ability. Neither of her older sons had shown any talent for singing, but Jimmy had picked it up as easily as Sarah herself. Sarah had told House once that Jimmy had been a chazzan as well when he was a teenager, after his bar mitzvah. After that, she said, he had started listening to everything he could get his hands on; pop, jazz, rock, blues, gospel . . . if there were lyrics, he wanted to learn them.

He’s not surprised Wilson loves the words best. They’re all Wilson has sometimes, and his job depends on finding the right ones. Can’t very well leave a terminal patient with an “oops, it looks like there’s nothing we can do. Sucks to be you, buddy”, now can you?

All those words come sliding, slipping, stuttering out of him. Not something he’s written himself, oh no, that would be too personal. Wilson strips the layers from other people, not himself. Words - how you say them, how you mean them - can change an entire piece of music.

They give you control, and Wilson likes control.

House wishes he had the patience to teach Wilson to play something. Just to see him give up that control, if only for four minutes and thirty seconds at a time.

~*~*~*~*~

They don’t collaborate often. Sharing bottles of Heineken and various take-out containers is one thing. Consulting on a patient and fighting over treatments is another. And music is most definitely a different animal altogether.

They don't have King-and-Clapton-style jam sessions, with House accompanying Wilson on "Three O'Clock Blues" or "Cocaine". They don't laugh over House drunkenly trying to recreate Jimi's Woodstock performance of the Star-Spangled Banner, or celebrate Wilson finally transposing "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" into baritone over lunch. They don't sit down at the piano together as Wilson tries to learn chord progressions or correct House's breathing techniques.

Their collaboration is something uniquely their own - and as most things connected to them invariably do, it involves alcohol and sex.

The night of Wilson’s first divorce, House came in after a midnight bike ride to find Wilson at the piano. His spare key was sitting on the end table, and judging by the bags, Wilson was crashing for a few weeks. Karen had done a number on Wilson, who’d broken out the Dylan sheets and was currently singing "Girl from the North Country".

Ouch. Could be worse - could be “Blowin’ in the Wind”.

House remembers watching Wilson’s fingers press the keys gently and inexpertly. Remembers the rolling chords coming out too sharp, the notes jangling together, and Wilson's voice far too jagged. House slid onto the bench next to him, covering Wilson's hands to move them down a half-step. Picking up the pace to give Wilson the rhythm the song needed.

With House's hands guiding him, Wilson's playing was louder, smoother. And with Wilson's voice getting stronger, House's low counterpoint - in the darkness of my night, in the brightness of my day - didn't sound so out-of-place.

Playing alongside Wilson was easy; too familiar, too comfortable.

After the last chords faded, House found that bottle of Sauza Gold left by his last attempt at a relationship, and two limes. He’d moved over to the couch, kicking off his running shoes and waving Wilson over. They sat there, passing the tequila between them, until their eyes met over the bottle and Wilson’s mouth quirked up in that tiny smile he got when House had something he wanted.

“Jesus, House . . . please.”

Wilson didn’t usually beg, but really, it had been a while. And House can’t deny what that edge-of-desperate tone does to his cock.

House slid messily to the floor, unbuttoned Wilson's jeans, and begun jacking Wilson off, spreading the spilled tequila and lime juice all over his cock. House just had to laugh at him when Wilson complained about getting sticky and applied his mouth to the area in question, pulling off only to enthuse over the combination of Wilson, booze, and citrus. God, does he miss dropping to his knees in front of Wilson - misses it almost as much as runner's highs and hitting holes-in-one on the back nine.

He remembers how Wilson’s hands, clenched into the beige leather, got progressively more white-knuckled as House continued to suck him off. He’d pulled his mouth away and switched back to his hand for a little bit - half to regain his breath, half to watch the way Wilson whined low in his throat and thrust his hips up restlessly. Wilson’s just so fucking pretty when he’s hot for it - muscles cording in his forearms, hips rolling, throat bared as his head falls back - and while House loves teasing him, he loves watching Wilson come more. Watched that night as those soft brown eyes that were fixed on his darkened, widened, as Wilson groaned inarticulately and came all over House‘s hand.

House realizes, much later, that there’s always a price to pay for enjoying Wilson’s begging. Specifically, one involving being thrown over the arm of the couch, stomach down, ass in the air, and Wilson’s tongue rimming him until he can’t remember his own name.

But God, is it worth it.

~*~*~*~

The next time was after the infarction, when House didn't think he'd touch an instrument ever again and Wilson was too scared to say much of anything to him. Talking had always been easy in their friendship, and now there was this almost-insurmountable wall called "chronic pain" between them. House was angry and Wilson was lost and Stacy had left because she didn't want to become either.

She took most of House's heart with her. She left all the furniture and the widescreen television they’d bought for the bedroom. She also left three bottles of Bordeaux, which he and Wilson finished off at some obscene hour after not-watching three basketball games in a row. Wilson was curled into the pillows beside him, breath coming out on a soft wheeze and blowing strands of hair out of his face. House didn’t have the heart - or maybe he had just enough of one left - to wake him.

His guitar was next to the bed, where it had sat since he came home from the hospital, and he picked it up, hands curving around the familiar frame. He strummed a few chords, completely unsurprised when they turned into the descending opening riff to "White Room". His low growl is good for this song, more Clapton than Bruce, and his lips remember the words despite himself.

I’ll sleep in this place, where the sun never shines. Lie here with you, where the shadows run from themselves . . .

Wilson’s never had the appreciation of Clapton that House thinks he should have, but he waits for House to finish the solo before laying the guitar on the floor and holding tight to House’s relentlessly shifting body. He can’t stop shaking and hates it, gritting his teeth while Wilson tells him for the five-hundredth time that it’s going to, eventually, be all right.

It wasn't supposed to hurt this much, House had shakingly breathed into Wilson's hair as they lay wrapped up in each other, in the bedroom that still smelled like Stacy's Chanel perfume. Wilson right leg wrapped around House's waist as he rocked gently against him, carefully, like a fruit that would bruise if Wilson touched him too hard. It was fragile, this thing between them, and House's whispering was broken by the cries torn from his throat as Wilson's fingers brushed the mass of scar tissue on his thigh. He had pulled Wilson's hand up, closing his lips around two fingers and sucked desperately.

Had tried to put a stopper in all the words that wanted to spill out and that had absolutely nothing to do with the man in his arms.

What the fuck, God?

And then Wilson pulled his hand away, fingers leaving a sticky trail on House’s cheek, and kissed him, a soft brush of lips that said all it needed to say. Wilson’s mind-reading gets scary at times, and House learned early on not to question it. Something about tempting the wrath of the whatever.

So he focused on the slide of Wilson’s skin against his - hot and slick and maddeningly slow. They worked each other with mouths and hands, shuddering out their climaxes in whispers instead of shouts. House had fallen asleep quickly, head pillowed on Wilson's chest, his arms winding around Wilson's middle completely of their own volition.

His leg woke him an hour later (the clockwork cycle of the leg pain and lack-of-sleep pain was still new), and so he kept as still as he could and tried different ways to keep his mind off it. Recalling old case files, cursing under his breath when he couldn't remember any of their names. Naming every Bob Marley song in chronological order, starting with The Wailing Wailers album all the way through Uprising. He only got as far as Catch a Fire and "Stop that Train". Trying to quote bits of Python - Wilson liked Holy Grail the best, but House preferred Life of Brian - and forgetting what came after the “favorite color” sketch.

His memory was getting shaky, and that scared the hell out of him even more than Stacy and the leg combined.

~*~*~*~

They’ve convinced themselves that sex only counts when it’s about the music.

The kissing and mutual jerking-off they did in House’s car after that U2 concert (the Joshua Tree tour, and Wilson still insists that The Unforgettable Fire was a better album) doesn’t count. It’s still fresh in their minds, though, every time House’s chronic insomnia prompts him to pick out “Where the Streets Have No Name” and Wilson hums “Bad” whenever he does his rounds in peds. You wouldn’t think kids would respond well to songs about drug addiction, but apparently, it’s effective. He’s watched six-year-old neuroblastoma patients stop crying and lie there listening to Wilson’s absentminded "I'm wide awake, wide awake, and I'm not sleeping . . .".

He can relate, after all.

But it doesn’t count. That was just half blowing off steam - because Bono's ass had looked fantastic in those leather pants - and half “we are so going to get caught”. They could take risks like that, then, when Wilson wasn’t married and House could run as far away from responsibility as he wanted. Neither does that time six years ago. Wilson had just married Bonnie, and Stacy was pretty much a permanent fixture in House’s life.

They’d taken off for an early lunch hour, and House had convinced Wilson to make empanadas (because while Paco Taco was pretty good, they couldn’t hold a candle to Wilson).

It was one of the very few times House willingly set foot in Wilson and Bonnie’s house - he liked Bonnie, but her home was a very look-but-don’t-touch kind of place. That should have extended to her husband, but House’s inner six-year-old tended to regard that with a “finder’s keepers!” response. He’d pounced on an unsuspecting Wilson and finger-fucked him right up against the counter.

He remembers most how Wilson‘s speech degenerated from the Paul Simon lyrics he’d been singing (poor boys and pilgrims, and he has to compliment Wilson’s taste - it could have been “Bridge Over Troubled Water“, and that would have been embarrassing) to short sentences to a continuous “ohgodplease” and then finally into low, inarticulate keens.

House still likes his empanadas slightly cold.

~*~*~*~*~

The third time - which is nowhere near that number, by any stretch of the imagination - hits House by surprise. Fucking blindsides him, actually - after Tritter and rehab and Christmas (fucking Christmas), he wasn’t expecting to ever touch Wilson again.

Sure, they put their friendship back together. Things got back to within relative parameters of normal. House started stealing Wilson’s lunch again, and Wilson continued henpecking him to buy groceries or go for pizza with people other than him. Wilson stayed when the fellows left, and said “I told you so” when Foreman came back.

House could have gone without the guitar-napping - what kind of raving lunatic breaks the bridge off a Les Paul, for God’s sake? - but it got him a new team and Cuddy’s underwear, to boot.

One thing it didn’t get him was James Wilson back in his bed, in any and all positions they could imagine. And since he’d always been rather proud of his vivid imagination, he was disappointed to miss out on the opportunity. Wilson wasn’t distant, but he had made it clear that anything passing the boundaries of the just-friends label was out of the question.

Apparently, all he’d had to do was tell Wilson he loved him.

Okay, yes, it was under the influence of post-electrocution haziness and a ton of drugs, but he’d said it. It counted. And while Wilson had just shook his head in the hospital room, he’d ambushed House about a week later, right after “Sixth Sense” girl’s spleen had started necrotizing. House had just sent the candidates off on a little late-night gravedigging expedition, and Wilson had locked the door, yanked the blinds mostly-closed, and dropped to his knees to give House what probably qualified as another near-death experience.

Afterward - once he’d regained the use of his lungs, vocal chords, and higher brain functions - he’d gone to ask Wilson what the hell that had been about. He’d barely gotten a breath when Wilson’s voice cut him off.

“Two days, House.” He sat back on his heels, looking up at House with a calculating stare that House knows, from a good deal of experience, could end really well for him, or really badly. “Solve your case. Annoy Cuddy. Play Survivor with your Fellows. And figure out what the hell you want this thing between us to be. Whatever you decide to do, I want to know in two days.”

“What if I want it all?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could deny them, and oh shit, he really did just go and say that, didn‘t he?

Wilson smiled - that sneaky little “you’ve got it bad” grin that had won him the hearts and panties of various nurses, paramedics, and diagnosticians - and kissed him, slow and heated and too damned manipulative. He’d sauntered out - patients to check on, nurses to charm, yadda yadda yadda - and House had sat in his chair, pants open, for a good five minutes before he remembered that the blinds were still partway open.

God, Wilson makes him stupid sometimes.

Forty-eight hours had never been so fucking excruciating. He'd been completely distracted - who knew Big Love would actually have the set to sucker-punch him? - though really, mirror guy had zeroed in on his state of mind rather well. Wilson’s in charge, indeed.

That night, House had gathered his things together and driven the bike home in a daze that was probably not a good state of mind to be in, on the road. He leaned into the curves, gunned the engine, played chicken with the bicyclists down the center divider like usual, but he suspected his brain was probably still in that two-days-ago puddle on his office floor.

It’s probably some sort of cosmic joke that he’s had “Roadhouse Blues” stuck in his head all day.

Keep your eyes on the road and your hands up on the wheel, cause the future’s uncertain and the end is always near . . .

~*~*~*~

He pulls the bike up to the sidewalk, hooking it to the grating on his building like he always does. Unlocks his front door, throwing his backpack onto the couch and heading for the kitchen to pour himself a whiskey. His hand almost grabs for the Maker’s Mark instinctively, but no, this isn’t a drink-yourself-into-a-coma night. This is a I-need-a-drink-before-Wilson-shows-up night, so he pops the top off the Jamison's and pours himself a glass.

After he sits on the piano bench, setting his cane atop the magazine-and-newspaper-lined top of the piano, his fingers immediately settle into an old Howlin’ Wolf song – heavy on the bass line, right hand sliding into what would usually be the harp part. Use the breaks in the verses to drain the glass a little more every time. Deep and simple and mindless, because he can’t really think right now, not with Wilson about to walk in that door and –

And do what? Has he ever been able to predict what Wilson will do before? It’s not like this has ever been easy. This has never resided in the same planet as “easy”. It’s not like once they’d figured out the possessiveness and jealousy and banter was a thin veneer between respectable sanity and “I want you, I’ve always wanted you, and fuck what anyone else thinks” they’d run out and bought matching towels or some shit.

How is this going to be any different?

“Haven’t played that one in a while.”

Dammit, Wilson. Sneaking up on the cripple while he's at a piano is not sportsmanlike.

He swallows, sets the glass back atop the piano. Doesn’t look at Wilson. The chorus comes out harsher than he intends – he’s stamped on the foot pedal with his bad leg, and it doesn’t hurt so much as remind him that he doesn’t have the control he used to – and ignores Wilson as he starts to half-hum, half-sing the lyrics.

Who’s been talking ‘bout everything I do? . . . cause you, my baby, is the one I’d hate to lose . . .

Wilson puts a hand on House’s shoulder and listens as the notes die away. “What are you trying to tell me, House?”

Oh, come on, House thinks. Put the pieces together, Wilson. Follow the patterns. Howlin’ Wolf plus Jamison’s plus two days of enforced torture. And Wilson wonders why House shuts himself up, if this is what he gets for finally saying what Wilson wants to hear.

He doesn’t look away from the pianotop in front of him. Old issues of JAMA. The empty cases to Let it Bleed and Me and Mister Johnson half-hidden under last week’s Times and a mess of fortune cookies from Sun Xin’s. Familiar stuff, unconnected to anything that may or may not be happening in James Wilson’s brain behind him.

Which is when he feels Wilson’s lips brush across the base of his neck and hears Wilson murmur in his ear.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

Before he can smack Wilson upside the head and ask him how he’d come to that brilliant observation, Wilson’s lips trail up to his ear, leaving little bites and slow, hot licks in his wake. House’s voice catches in his throat as Wilson’s hands stroke firm and sure down his arms to slide open the buttons to his shirt cuffs. He sits there, frozen, as Wilson hums some nameless tune and starts on the bottom button of his dress shirt, making his way up House’s chest to finally push the shirt off his shoulders.

“You told me something a few days ago, you know. Said it like you meant it and everything. Except I know you too well - wanted to say something else instead, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t -” House stumbles over the words. Fuck. He doesn’t stutter, he doesn’t, except this is Wilson, and with Wilson, he does a lot of things that are impossible. “I don’t want-”

Wilson’s teeth close around the lobe of House’s ear, digging in slow and sharp, and House can’t stifle his choked gasp.

“You did. You still do.” Wilson says into his ear. “So say it, House.”

And Jesus, he can’t think when Wilson’s pressed tight to his back, nails digging into his biceps, teeth dragging over his ear. Not when Wilson’s voice has spiraled down to a low, filthy rasp, targeting the part of House that wants nothing more than to break. To open his mouth and fucking plead with Wilson to do something, anything.

“Jimmy, please, just -”

“I’m not repeating myself.”

It gets wrung out of him, like it or not. “I missed you. Missed us. Still do.”

Wilson doesn’t have to say anything in return. Not when he’s tugging House upright, steadying him by wrapping both arms around him, kissing him almost too-gently for the mood he’s in. He reaches for his cane and Wilson walks with him into the bedroom. He lowers himself to the bed, peeling off shoes, jeans, and tee-shirt in a daze as Wilson strips out of his suit.

This time, House asks for what he wants, and that mainly involves Wilson fucking him hard enough to bruise. This time, House asks for forgiveness, and Wilson obliges with every thrust of his hips and slow, sure stroke to House’s dick. Because House is finally, finally figuring out that it’s not the sex that counts toward how stupidly fast he keeps falling for James Wilson.

Is falling. Has fallen.

And when he wakes up the next morning, to the smell of pancake syrup and Wilson singing along with "Riding With the King", all he can do is pop two Vicodin, pull on his boxers, and join in when he reaches the living room.

You can see it in his face, cause the blues never lie . . .

~*~*~*~

* Songs are, in order: B.B. King - How Blue Can You Get, Bob Dylan - Girl from the North Country, Cream - White Room, U2 - Bad, Paul Simon - Graceland, The Doors - Roadhouse Blues, Howlin'Wolf - Who's Been Talkin', and B.B. King and Eric Clapton - Riding with the King.

~*~*~*~

Feedback is, ever and always, hugged and squeezed and called George.

BWEEEE YULETIDE!

2007-12-30T19:05:22Z

yuletide IS HERE!!!

Actually, it's been here since Christmas, but I've kind of fallen into the archive and couldn't find my way back out. God, there were some brilliant and amazing stories this year, and I am so in love with all the people who have been reviewing my two contributions.

So here, have some recs:

Artemis Fowl

Not to Seek Her for a While
- Artemis, gen. This is, in my head, EXACTLY what happened after the fifth book, when Artemis returns from Hybras with stolen magic and one of Holly's eyes. I love how this is a different Artemis than any we've encountered - this is an Artemis as close to peace as he'll ever be. He's trying his best to have a "normal childhood" for Angeline - and has no idea how to deal with younger siblings, after fourteen years as an only child capable of getting away with everything but murder. He's come to peace with the faery world, but isn't above trying to wheedle faery technology out of Foaly. The mention of the strain between Butler and the Fowls just breaks my heart, as does Angeline still believing that Butler and Artemis are insane until Arty (not Artemis, and the author is fully aware of that lovely distinction) proves them right. I love the relationship between Artemis and his mother, and just how very like his father Artemis tends to be.

Arthurian Legend

Concerning the Wine which was Spilt at the Feast of Saint Ignatius . . .
- Arthur & Morgan, gen. Oh, if only all of Malory was like this - I'd have gotten through Morte d'Arthur a lot easier. This is an utterly gorgeous and in-depth look at characters that are easy to confine to stereotype, and how they're all pawns in a delicate balance. I love Arthur's almost unquestioning devotion to Morgan, and how he loves his kingdom too much to be lead into her temptation. I love Gawain's sweetness (which is in such contrast to the bullheaded and bumbling portrayal he gets in later sources) and the intelligence he shows when he finds Arthur in the woods. I love how Morgan is mysterious and loving and fierce by turns, and how she breaks Arthur's heart a dozen different ways but only tries to kill him to make him stronger. I love Arthur paying tribute to his sister's strength of will, and the hint of Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot at the end. Beautiful and epic, just as Arthurian Legend should be.

Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes

The Case of the Broken-Hearted Liar
- Holmes/Watson, R. Okay, occasionally I am just shallow and need to rec good porn. And this fantastic Holmes/Watson story could certainly qualify. But oh, this is so much more than blisteringly hot smut - this is well-written, completely in-character blisteringly hot smut. With an actual case to solve, to boot. The author's Watson voice is dead-on, and you can just feel Watson's caring (like another overprotective doctor I could name). And Holmes is at his brilliant, manipulative best - because while Watson is a temptation, and a fascinating one at that, Holmes is ever searching for the next mystery, the next high.

Bible - Old Testament

Wild Honey
- David/Bathsheba, David/Jonathan. David on the impossibilities and surprising nature of love. Really, it's not as pretentious as that - it's gorgeous, with an older David falling for a woman in the moonlight and remembering another person he first fell in love with by moonlight. It's David, reflecting on what a king is and what a shepherd is, and how he used to keep them seperate. And it is David - beautiful, fallible, beloved David - loving Jonathan even as he begins to love Bathsheba. And Bathsheba isn't some ornament for David's bed - she is quick-witted and surprisingly intuitive, because there are people in their hearts that neither wish to speak of, and she doesn't let David forget it. Gorgeous, gorgeous prose, with a very apropos lyrical style to it.

Blues Brothers

Hard-Headed Woman of Mine
- Elwood, gen. This fandom is so small, but so rich in potential and character that this story is such a welcome addition. This is Elwood Blues, and why he doesn't have a woman in his life. It's why a car is better than a woman any day, and why brotherhood means telling your big brother he's being a complete moron - because the right car will never let you down, and brothers don't let each other marry the wrong kind of woman. I love how Camille is never named - keeping her anonymity from the movie intact - and the relationship between Curtis and Elwood. The author has just nailed the banter between Jake and Elwood perfectly, especially Elwood's ridiculously in-character "you stupid dick". And oh, the underlying of the Howlin' Wolf and Taj Mahal song "She Caught the Katy" is just the cherry on top.

Bones

Curriculum Vitae
- Angela, gen. Four jobs Angela Montenegro has held in her life, and how they help her at her current position in the Jeffersonian. Much less formulaic than it sounds. I adore the interactions between Angela and Hodgins (which rings especially true to their relationship in canon), and Angela and Zack. I love how the wide range of jobs reflects Angela's adventurous spirit - I can see her taking off to Rome to take photos for National Geographic very easily. And it's such a little tiny detail, but the author has just nailed Booth's voice and friendly relationship with Angela that's got a dimension completely different from their interactions with anyone else. It's not romantic, not sexual, and not just-friends, and I love how the author's included it here.

Carnivale

Digger of Holes in the Land
- Ben, gen. What happens to Ben Hawkins after what everyone thought was the final battle. I don't like Ben at the best of times, but this author manages to capture all the things I do find fascinating about him - his connection to Justin, his unwilling protege role with Lodz, his banter with Samson as an equal, his crazy obsession with Sofie - and combine them with some dream sequences and dialogue that I could swear came right out of DK's head. Ben's description of what it's really like to heal - like being inside someone's skin - is just so shivery good and Campbellian that I just want to watch "Los Moscos" again for Justin perverting that skill by visualizing himself as Ben. And Ben's urge to run, to become like his father in just one more way, is so palpable and well-written that I want to hug him. Dirt and all.

Casino Royale

Hardly Chastened
- Bond/OMC, R. You know, it should be damn near impossible to write a m/m sex scene including James Bond. This author pulls it off with style, showing how far Bond will go in getting himself back in M's good graces. This is Bond with something to prove, a need to fuck someone over in the worst way possible, and a target who unfortunately fills all those qualities. And this is a Bond still completely in character - still in charge, leaving them sweaty, panting, and begging for more. Brilliant job.

Criminal Minds

Bread is to Stone as Fish is to Serpent
- OMC, gen. Twisty, turny, and just plain dark, like the show itself. I will not ruin the surprise ending, but trust me, you'll be reading this one twice. Suffice it to say, this has a few things to say on the subject of the personal habits of profilers, that old axiom about the sins of the father is only half true, and even the UnSubs are trying to feed Spencer Reid.

Greek Mythology

Ionic, Doric, Corinthian, Agony
- Ares/Aphrodite, R. The real story of Ares and Aphrodite, told in a gorgeously modern, yet very bardic style. How they met, what the reactions of the family were, and how it all fell apart. I love the sly, witty humor, and the conversational tone. The style is just brilliant, and the very American Gods-esque ending is so apropos. This story is just fifteen different kinds of awesome.

Hairspray (2007 movieverse)

(And My Heart's) Keeping Time
- Maybelle/Corny. Dude, this pairing would never be possible if James Marsden hadn't spent virtually all of the 2007 movie staring moonstruck at Queen Latifah (and really, who can blame the guy?). It adds a whole new dimension to not only Corny (who has no character at all in the musical except for singing "The Nicest Kids in Town" and "It's Hairspray"), but Maybelle as well, as a woman who's got friends of the opposite race, too. And this author captures that dynamic perfectly. I love their interaction, the way Corny won't let Maybelle steamroller right over him like she does most people. And oh, the way Corny just can't seem to keep his mouth shut around her. Fantastic and playful.

Independence Day

Our Endless Work Down Here in Paradise
- Tom/David, R. After the world is saved, the work doesn't end, and I love the gradual build of the relationship between still-President Tom Whitmore and Big Damn Computer Genius Hero David Levinson. The author has continued the epic tone of the movie in Tom's speeches, and I loved how David's constant need to voice his opinions made him an ideal advisor. The shift in their relationship from a friendship forced upon them by the end of the world to a need-based physical connection is interesting, and could have come off as really cheesy or forced. And it's a testament to the author that it doesn't.

Janet Evanovich - Stephanie Plum series

The War at Home
- Steph, gen. Honestly, with one minor addition, this is what I hope happens at the end of the series somewhere down the line. Basically, Ranger dies and leaves Steph control of RangeMan, Joe takes off, and Steph, Connie, Lula, and Tank are left to deal with a rapidly escalating mob war. This is Steph having to finally grow up, and realizing along the way that there are holes you can fill and there are holes you can't. So you do what you can. The author has totally nailed the suspense and signature humor of the series, and the scene with Steph and her mother at the end is just fantastic. Because no matter how old you get - coffee cake and a pep talk from Mom still work wonders.

Jeff and Michael Shaara - Civil War Trilogy

Mavourneen
- Mira Hancock, Winfield Scott Hancock, and Lewis Armistead - and all permutations thereof. AIEEEE! This is MY Yuletide gift, and it is brilliant and heartbreaking and lovely and sad and bittersweet and gorgeous and EVERYTHING I WANTED. AND OMG THE TITLE! I apologize for the capslock, but I've never encountered anyone who likes this series enough to fic it - besides me and Carla, that is.

Anyway, the Shaaraverse is comprised of three novels: "Gods and Generals" (you may have possibly seen the not-so-good movie adaptation), "The Killer Angels" (inspiration for the movie Gettysburg and the Joss Whedon series Firefly), and "The Last Full Measure" (which is crazy-long and no one's made into a movie yet). It traces the American Civil War from the year leading up to the firing upon Fort Sumter through to the South's surrender at Appomatox, in the voices of some of its most influential generals. My favorite of which are Major General Winfield Scott Hancock (Union), and his doomed best friend, Brigadier General Lewis Addison Armistead (Confederate). Win and Lew, in the novels, have a paralleling plotline, starting at a dinner party Win's wife Mira threw for the departing soldiers before the war. Lew vows never to raise a hand to Win, or God should strike him dead. Needless to say, God calls his bluff, and Lew must lead Pickett's Charge against Win's Second Corps at Gettysburg.

This story takes place prior to "Gods and Generals", giving us a brilliant look into the life of the Hancocks before the war, when Lew is still a Major and Win still a Captain. In the novel, a possible threesome is more than hinted at - Mira and Win are married, Mira is shown to deeply care for Lew, and Win and Lew's closer-than-brotherhood is pretty much pounded into everyone's heads any time either of them is mentioned.This story takes that dynamic and spins it a bit further, in a gorgeously rendered Mira-voice. I adore the little details of this story - certain looks or movements that remind Mira how much she still loves Win; Lew's signature teasing humor and underlying sweet nature; the Hancock's elder child, Russell, staying up late to hear "Uncle Lewis" and his father tell stories; Mira's love of both types of cookie, and both men; Lew and Win stretching out by the fire like little kids, and Mira losing propriety and sitting down beside them.

Just go. READ. I can't say it enough.

Jekyll

Now and Then
- Katherine, gen with a slight Katherine/Tom and Katherine/Hyde bent. Sparse and lyric and beautiful, this story gives us such a window into honestly my favorite character in the series. You've got to look out for this girl. I love her strength and efficiency, and especially her secretive nature: "You've kept my secrets, and you've kept his. And you've even managed to keep a few of your own". Katherine was such an enigma in the show that the backstory the author has invented could very well be true. I always regretted not seeing enough of Katherine in the series - because her interaction with Tom (and especially with Hyde) told you both so much about her, and not nearly enough.

Mad Men

Your Life Has Not Been Trademarked (Some People Have Real Problems)
- Don, with mentions of Don/Betty, Don/Midge, and Don/Rachel. A day in the life of Don Draper, with his perfect house, perfect wife, perfect kids, perfect mistresses, perfect career - and the perfect lie he's created for himself, because he's not really Don Draper, now is he? The author perfectly captures Don's chameleon abilities, and the scary ad parallels to his life. And oh, how much do I love the ending? A LOT.

Madeline L'Engle - Austin/Murry/O'Keefe Families

A Song By Starlight
- Meg & Charles Wallace, gen. Someone brilliantly and bittersweetly has managed to channel Madeline, because this is the most beautiful story I have ever read. It fits perfectly into the Time Series, right between "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" and "Many Waters", and it just nails the author's voice so well. The author has taken these characters that I've loved since I was ten and "horrible" like Meg, and placed them on a beautifully and naturally crafted path that makes you go "yes, that's what happened next". Meg, even in her twenties and a mother to two children, is still that so-Meg mix of insecure and brilliant, and Charles Wallace, while he's grown tall, hasn't quite left that headstrong little boy who should remember he "does not know everything" behind. It begins very much like "A Wrinkle in Time", with Meg up in the attic worrying herself during a storm and coming down to the kitchen for cocoa with Charles Wallace. The middle and end evoke "A Wind in the Door" and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet by turns, with Kything and going Within, and passing the important tests. I won't spoil the actual ending, but this story leaves you with such a gorgeously aching feeling, as the books themselves do, and retains the "whistling in the dark" feel of the series itself.

M*A*S*H

Redeployment
- Hawkeye/BJ, R-ish. And oh, this hits me right in the screwed-up snarky doctors and the married doctors who love them too much for their own good kink (I have a newfound love for House/Wilson, I've always loved Hawkeye/BJ . . . it explains so much). San Francisco, a free clinic, and a chance meeting post-Korea are just the beginning. I love the little heartbreaking details - Hawkeye having another breakdown, BJ's failed marriage, infidelity not counting if BJ didn't initiate it, Hawkeye not wanting to forge BJ's signature - and the ending is just right. It cuts off before "and then they done sex", and it's absolutely perfect, because you know all you need to know about Doctors Benjamin Franklin Pierce and BJ Hunnicutt.

The Mighty Ducks

The Shots You Don't Take
- Connie/Julie, R. Okay, I don't usually go for femslash, but this? Is fantastic and so in-character. Because girls are girls, even when they're cutthroat hockey players. I love how the author has created such a believable Connie voice, and how to her, Julie is still "The Cat", even at the '98 Olympics. I love the teamwork and tentative friendship and relationship between them. And I love that no matter where you go, what you do, you're still a Duck. This is another one of those movies that defined my childhood, and it's nice to get this completely different look at it.

nip/tuck

And All The Roads
- Sean/Christian. And it's like the author KNOWS ME. First, the title is from Oasis's "Wonderwall", which is my default best-friends-turned-lovers song. Second, it's written in a fantastic mid-S5 Sean voice. The boys get mistaken for gay yet again, and this time, it's not Christian who bats his eyes at the misinformed person and snuggles Sean. Christian's still mid-sexual crisis, and I love Sean's nonchalance in figuring out - oh yeah, maybe Christian IS the reason he's never felt happy with anyone else. This is a more mature Sean than we've seen for a while, and I love it.

Neil Gaiman - American Gods

In Symbols
- Gen. This is Loki at his most cunning and dangerous - and it is so easy to forget just how painful Loki's betrayals can be. I loved the beginning, with patient Loki awaiting the slaughter of the Norsemen by Odin's side. I loved Laufeson (and like Neil, this author knows the truth in names) and Baldur and the mistletoe, innocuous and deadly. And oh, that ending, when it all comes together so perfectly in a very Neil-esque way. Winter is the season of shadows, after all.

Profit

Help Wanted
- Gail, gen. And OH GAIL, HONEY. *squishes her* Gail Kohner is probably my favorite female on Profit, because of all the potential she has. She's not screwed up like Joanne or Bobbi or needy like Nora or Connie. No, Gail is brilliant and awesome because she's genuinely a good woman who's starting to see the world the way Jim Profit sees it. The author has captured Gail's signature quirks, her captured-bird mannerisms and stuttering whenever Profit pushes her a little further into fellow-sociopath-hood. I love the way she codes her want-ad reading and actually thinks Profit won't notice. I love how she comes in early not because she's dedicated (even though she is), but because she wants to spend as little time in Profit's office with him there as possible. I love the very apropos cobra/mouse metaphor for the relationship between Profit and Gail, and how in the end, Profit gets what he wants anyway.

Your Pearly Whites
- Profit/Gail. And oooh, the Gail-voice in this is so tightly wound and well-crafted that you can practically HEAR Lisa Darr stuttering her way through this. And you know how I mentioned in the previous rec about how I love Gail for jumping through Profit's hoops and realizing it's good to help him get what he wants? This story takes that theme and just makes it fifteen times better.

RENT

Some Life That We've Chosen
- Mark, Roger, Collins, and Benny, gen. Pre-series fic that is OMG just like the musical. I can really see this as exactly what the Boho Boys did and said before April and that half-a-year-of-withdrawal. The author's Mark-voice is so perfect - his casual one-liners that you almost don't expect out of such a nerdy kid, and the familiar push/pull of his friendship with Roger. Collins is the best anarchist EVER, and I love his bantering with Mark in the beginning. Roger, withdrawing into his room, being a total jerkass, but still going to Cindy's wedding with Mark like a good fake-boyfriend. And Benny. Oh, Benny - so loveably sardonic and still human, before he sold his soul to the man and Alison Grey of the Westport Greys. But I mainly love Mark and Roger, and all the little facets of their friendship - Mark's terrible driving, Roger's cheerful dragging of Mark to shows, the entire ending at Cindy's reception. And oh, the dialogue is just spot-on for each of the boys, and I love Maureen's little cameo.

RPS - Fry/Laurie

Pretendses
- Stephen Fry/Hugh Laurie, of course. Oh, BOYS. I've recently gotten into the loveliness that is Fry/Laurie due to falling head over heels for Hugh again in House, falling for Stephen again on Bones, and rewatching them both in Blackadder. And while I'm not exceedingly well-read in this fandom, I don't think I've ever read such a fantastic Hugh voice, all trademark snark and playfulness. I love the tone - so conversational and in-your-face with the "let's just skip right over this, shall we?" - and Stephen's crazy writing spree in Paris hits me right in the "yeah, I know what THAT'S like" bit of my brain. The icing on top of the cake is Hugh and Stephen watching Blackadder in French, and Stephen reading Hugh's newborn daughter to sleep. Oh, lovely.

Sandman

Fiddler's Went A'Courtin'
- Fiddler's Green, gen. Gilbert, at some point in time after "A Doll's House" and before "The Kindly Ones", realizes he's fallen in love with Rose Walker. So he does what any good gentleman would - he courts her, as she deserves. Honestly, this story shouldn't work, because Gilbert is a PLACE and Rose Walker is an immortal anthrophomorphic phenomenon, but it does. I adore the care Gilbert takes with Rose, the dreams and the chocolates, and the completely different care he takes when encountering Desire. A beautifully sweet and true-to-canon story.

Carve His Oddly Familiar Path
- Dream, gen. Thispicks up right where Sandman 75 leaves you off - with the Endless meeting the new Dream. And oh, it's written in such a Neil-esque style, with the quotes and the section intros and the dead-on character descriptions. I especially love the first section, where Daniel shows how he is not Morpheus at all, but still knows his family rather well. Very fitting that the author has Desire speak first, though it should be Death, because the Endless are nothing if not creatures of justice. Daniel's memories blend with the narrative in a gorgeous way, especially the bits about the Corinthian and being responsible for the Dreaming in the way Morpheus was not. Exactly what I needed after that section of "The Wake".

Tanya Huff - Blood Ties

Blood in the Water
- Mike, Vicki, and Henry, gen-ish. Set in the TV-series universe, after Mike sells Henry out to Javier Mendoza and Henry is drugged with the Iluminacion del Sol. So dead-on in character, with a reluctantly-making-amends Mike, a history-minoring pissed off Vicki, and Henry, who's not sure when the hell Detective Mike Celluci became one of "his". And ooh, I just love oh-so-hetero Mike getting strangely turned-on by Henry sealing the bite and later, "passing out in a manly fashion".

FIC: "An Atheist's Christmas Carol" (Panfandom)

2007-12-25T05:43:48Z

Merry Christmas, gang. Since Yuletide is completely done - 2031 stories this year! - I'll share one of my procrastination methods with you. To polish my style and keep the tone I was going for, I wrote drabbles any time I was stuck. This is the result. They can be read individually, but honestly, if you want the full effect, read the whole thing. It flows better that way.

Title: The Atheist's Christmas Carol
Author: Drea (d_generate_girl)
Rating: PG-13, for adult content and language.
Disclaimer: I own none of these properties, people, characters, or stories that I'm twisting so nefariously to my own purposes. I also don't own the song "An Atheist's Christmas Carol", by Vienna Teng. If I did, I'd be a rich, rich girl and wouldn't need to wait tables to pay off my college tuition, now would I? And really, suing is so not Christmasy.
Spoilers: Consider yourself spoiled for all aired canon, but specifically “Crossroads II” for BSG, “Merry Little Christmas” for House, “Christmas Bells” from the original musical of RENT, “Joan Rivers” for nip/tuck, “Noel” for TWW, and the Tribute to the Troops for WWE.
Summary: Six friendships. Six Christmases. Six ways to bridge the gap.

~*~*~*~

It’s the season of grace coming out of the void
Where man is saved by a voice in the distance

It would have been snowing on Caprica right about now, he remembers, as he walks the corridors of Galactica amid the blaring red lights of Condition One.

“You should’ve left me on Caprica. I’d have died along with everyone else and been happier for it.”

He meant it then. He means it more, now. Then, it was Bill lying with his chest cracked open, leaving him to deal with Bill’s rebellious son and his confederate, the schoolteacher masquerading as a politician. Then, it was a simple wish for the world to be taken off his shoulders and put back onto Bill’s, where it belonged.

Now, the world itself is different.

He not only sees things differently, he feels things differently. Each press of Bill’s fingers to his skin causes him to marvel that the sensation isn’t real. Each touch of Bill’s lips to his own triggers a shudder - is this it? Is this the kiss during which Bill figures out Saul isn’t human? Feels the machine under the man and turns him over to Laura Roslin and her pet airlock?

Is this the last time they’ve got, before the sympathetic glitch in his programming switches off and he carries out the mission that Sharon Valerii could not?

It goes around and around in his head, like that damned music. Bill’sgonnafindout. Bill’sgonnafindout.

“It’s good to have you back, Saul.”

And then it stops.

~*~*~*~

It’s the season of possible miracle cures
Where hope is currency and death is not the last unknown

Jimmy hasn’t bought him a Christmas present for ages. It’s not something they do.

Not since the infarction.

The year before it happened, he and Stacy had gone out for dinner with Wilson and Bonnie, and they’d exchanged gifts. Wilson had turned five separate shades of red when he unwrapped the pair of boxers Greg had gotten him - bright blue with little gold menorahs and Stars of David on them - and Stacy inhaled half her wine in response. Wilson had retaliated with a copy of “Butch Lesbian and the Lapdance Kid” and it was Bonnie’s turn to drink away the mortification.

But after the infarction - after Stacy had left and Mindy the investment banker had replaced Bonnie - it didn’t feel right.

Not when he was dragging twenty pounds of dead muscle and tissue around, taking a half-hour just to get to the fucking can. Not when he’d try and lock himself in the bathroom with his Vicodin and a bottle of scotch, and Wilson would just pick the lock and drag his sorry ass back to bed.

You don’t say “thank you” to that with just a pair of boxers or lesbian porn. Well, you could, but it would have to be really good porn.

So they stopped doing the gift thing. After last year, with Tritter and actually overdosing, Greg figured Jimmy would want to bypass Christmas as quickly as possible.

And nothing shocks him more than the package Jimmy tosses on his desk, at 12:02 on December 25th.

~*~*~*~

It's the season of eyes meeting over the noise
And holding fast with sharp realization

Roger is probably the only guy in New York, possibly the world, to fall in love with two people at the exact same moment in time.

It’s when Mimi finally drags him out of the apartment, and they’re standing at the corner of Avenue A, making dinner plans. Mimi’s wearing this cute little matching pink dress and coat that would look hideous on anyone but her, and he’s just chased off her dealer. None of this should be romantic. But it is, and she just shines when he looks at her.

Oh, it’s official. He’s gone for her. And then he hears a familiar voice - Mark.

Mark, who knows what it took for him to push the dealer away, because he’s the one who sat through a half a year of Roger’s detoxing. Who shoved and hit Roger right back when he cursed Mark out for finding every single stash he’d hidden, and who let Roger sleep in his bed when Roger’s own smelled too much like April.

He looks so fucking happy, Roger thinks, and he can’t help but wonder why Mark’s beaming like that under his glasses and striped scarf they stole from Collins last year. And then Mark flashes him a signature conspiratorial grin and smirks.

“She got you out.”

Yeah, Mimi got him out. Mark makes him want to stay there.

~*~*~*~

It’s the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
And you are safe here, you know

Christmas isn’t a family holiday, as far as Christian’s concerned.

All it was ever good for when he was a kid was empty promises about toys he’d never get. Christmas was the remote-control truck that he wanted for years - the first thing he bought himself with the money Mr. Troy gave him for keeping his mouth shut. Christmas was lies from Mr. Troy about not fucking him if he was a good boy.

Christian got screwed whether he was good or bad, but it was only when Mr. Troy said he was “a good boy” that it hurt most - when he’d get the belt or the punches on top of the fucking.

So he gave up on being the good boy - that was Sean’s job, with his perfect MCATs and perfect girlfriend and later, his perfect family. Sean invited him home every year for Christmas, and every year Christian made his excuses and blew off to Brazil or Cancun or some other tropical place for anonymous sex with anonymous people.

Men. Women. Didn’t matter, as long as Christian got what he wanted.

And then came the Carver - fucking psychopath just had to fulfill Christian’s Christmas-fucking quota. Sean found him in the shower, scrubbing the blood off - fuck the police, there was no fucking way he was taking a rape kit like some drunk sorority girl - and, after checking him out and calling the police, drove him home.

Sean’s place was always home, no matter how far Christian tried to run.

You can’t outrun family.

~*~*~*~

It's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart
Of feeling the full weight of our burdens

Sam is Josh’s best friend, right? Knows him better than anyone - the way his nose crinkles when he’s about to tell you something you don’t want to hear, the rising pitch in his voice when he’s angry, the slump of his spine when he’s let someone down.

Sam doesn’t see this coming.

Josh has made a full recovery, the doctors say. Full use of all his limbs and processes. Just a long scar over his heart that he’ll carry for the rest of his life. Even the First Lady assures them (assures him) that Josh is doing fine.

Except Josh gets this faraway look on his face whenever Sam turns on the radio. He holds things too tightly, like they’ll be snatched from his hands. Holds Sam too tightly as well, leaving behind fingernail impressions in Sam’s back and hips, and so many red bruises on his wrists that Sam’s thankful he wears suits all the time and a really big watch.

And then it’s Christmas Eve, and Josh has broken the glass and lied about it. Screamed at the President in the Oval Office to listen to him. Asked Toby why Yo-Yo Ma was still playing through the sirens.

Josh broke, and Sam didn’t even see the cracks.

~*~*~*~

It's the season of bowing our heads in the wind
And knowing we are not alone in fear, nor alone in the dark

Another Christmas, another trip to Iraq.

While yeah, he loves meeting the troops - the twenty-two hour flights into the middle of nowhere for security reasons are murder. Not to mention the claustrophobia of the narrow planes and helicopters, and the tiny barracks once they get there. It’s fucking torture.

It doesn’t help that he is, and always has been, afraid of heights.

Shawn makes it bearable, though. Forty-three years old, and he still hasn’t lost that Air Force brat love of planes. Shawn will take the window seat next to Hunter and position himself so Hunt doesn’t see how fucking high they really are. He’ll round up Cena and Benjamin and challenge them on Hunt’s behalf to a Halo tournament, encouraging Hunt‘s merciless taunting when he and Shawn win every round.

He’ll sneak certain Guns & Roses songs onto Hunter’s iPod and gleefully sing along to even the filthiest of lyrics if it means Hunter will forget about their cruising altitude and concentrate his mocking on Shawn’s apparent lapse from Christianity.

Hunt tells Steph about all these signature Shawn antics.

He never tells her how Shawn positioned the seat-backs, blankets and pillows so that no one can see them during the sleep cycle. How Shawn slid to his knees, unfastened Hunter’s restraints and jeans, and gave him the hottest, filthiest, most spine-melting blowjob he’d ever received in his life. He’d stuffed the sleeve of his jacket into his mouth to muffle the sounds, but God, he’d wanted Shawn to hear him.

And he definitely doesn’t tell her about dragging Shawn behind the nearest building as soon as they land and returning the favor.

~*~*~*~

And don’t forget, don’t forget I love, I love, I love you . . .

Feedback is, as always, hugged and loved and squeezed and called George.

MIX: "Ain't No Easy Way" (House/Wilson)

2007-12-15T02:41:30Z

Medium: Television
Fandom: House M.D.
Subject: Greg House/James Wilson
Title: Ain't No Easy Way
Warnings: None that I know of. All quotes used are from S1-S3, though the cover pic is from S4, not that it really spoils anything.
Notes: Individual track uploads via Sendspace.

I love my snarky medical show, especially the 21st century Sherlock Holmes and John Watson duo of Greg House and James Wilson. I love their Olympic-class banter and the way they can hurt each other so easily. I love Wilson running to House after his divorce(s) and House giving him beer, food, and a place to crash for however long he wants. I love House declaring his love for Wilson and pain meds in the same sentence. I love Wilson's many ties and House's many rock tees.

Most of all, I love them for being them, in all of their screwed-up, enabling glory.

~*~*~*

Opening Track:

Teardrop - Massive Attack
Because while yes, it is the House theme, everyone should have this song. It's also slow and sultry, and I have no doubt House can play the signature keyboard line.
(Love, love is a verb, love is a doing word/Fearless on my breath, gentle impulsion/Shakes me, makes me lighter/Fearless on my breath/A teardrop on the fire . . .)

~*~*~*~*~

James Wilson

"This buddy of mine - I gotta give him ten bucks every time somebody says 'thank you'. Imagine that. This guy's so good, people thank him for telling them that they're dying. I don't get thanked that much." - House, "Three Stories"

"You're a functional vampire. Sure, you're heroic, useful to society, but only because it feeds you. And you don't just have a fetish for needy people, you marry them. You mean it! And then time passes and suddenly they're not so needy any more. Your fault. You've been there for them too much, they're getting healthy, independent. And that's just ugly.... You know what you're risking by sleeping with a patient." - House, "House vs. God"

Golden Boy - Natalie Merchant
Doctor James Wilson. He just looks so normal, doesn't he? Except under the pretty exterior is the king of passive-aggressive schadenfreude.
(Heroes are born, idols are made/We're all fools for this factory fame/And you've got the brand new face, golden boy/Beauty untamed, stupid and wild/Poster boy, you're society's child/Cut your teeth, cut your mouth/Cut it out . . .)

Gin-Soaked Boy - the Divine Comedy
Anyone who voluntarily hangs out with Greg House has got to be either certifiable or not the nice guy everyone assumes him to be.
(I’m the ghost in the machine, I’m the genius in the gene/I’m the beauty in the beast, I’m the sunset in the east/I’m the ruby in the dust, I’m the trust in the mistrust/I’m the Trojan horse in Troy, I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy . . .)

The Facts About Jimmy - Shawn Colvin
House on Wilson and his wives, particularly circa S2 and his third divorce.
(Jimmy has debts and Jimmy has ties that he can't get out from under/If you look far enough into his eyes, it'll rock you just like thunder . . ./Jimmy, as if you didn't know by now, let me tell you a thing or two/Everybody might have someone, but everyone falls in love with you . . .)

Someone to Fall Back On - Jason Robert Brown
Wilson stands by House throughout everything, and he's got no illusions why.
(You don't believe me/But the things I have are the things you need/You look at me like I don't make sense/Like a waste of time, like it serves no purpose/I am no prince, I am no saint/And if that's what you believe you need . . .)

Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) - the Offspring
Wilson's a total dorkboy a lot of the time, but that's how we (and House) love him best.
(You know it's kinda hard just to get along today/Our subject isn't cool, but he fakes it anyway/He may not have a clue, and he may not have style/But everything he lacks? Well, he makes up for in denial/So don't debate, play it straight/You know he really doesn't get it anyway/He's gotta play the field and keep it real . . .)

~*~*~*~*~

Greg House

"I am a bored, certified diagnostician with a double specialty in infectious disease and nephrology. I am also the only doctor currently employed at this clinic who is forced to be here against his will. But not to worry, because for most of you, this job could be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Speaking of which, if you're particularly annoying, you may see me reach for this: this is Vicodin. It's mine. You can't have any. And no, I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem." - House, "Occam's Razor"

"You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the Rubik's complex; you need to solve the puzzle." - Wilson, "DNR"

Asshole - Denis Leary
Uh, you've seen the show, right? It's safe to say that not only does this song embody House, he probably has a copy of it.
(I'm just a regular Joe, with a regular job/I'm your average white, suburbanized slob/I like football and porno and books about war/I got an average house, with a nice hardwood floor . . ./But sometimes that just ain't enough to keep a man like me interested/No, I gotta go out and have fun at someone else's expense/So I drive really slow in the ultra fast lane/While people behind me are going insane/Cause I'm an asshole . . .)

Go it Alone - Beck
Greg House; pill-popping misanthrope. Ain't nobody gonna get him to admit he NEEDS something.
(Drowning all the cares in the world when I get older/Climbing up on the back porch fence/Just to see the dogs running with a ring and a question/And my shivering voice is singing through a crack in the window/Na na na na, better go it alone . . .)

Bird on a Wire - Leonard Cohen
House at his most introspective, probably involving a combination of Vicodin and alcohol.
(If I, if I have been untrue/I hope you know it was never to you/Like a baby, stillborn, like a beast with his horn/I have torn everyone who reached out for me . . .)

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Joan Baez
Lord King Diagnostician couldn't figure out his own problem, trusted the wrong people, and it cost him. Wilson on House during the infarction.
(The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense/Take what you have gathered from coincidence/The empty handed painter from your streets/Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets/This sky, too, is folding under you/And it's all over now, baby blue . . .)

Elevation - U2
House's love for fast cars, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Because sometimes you just have to figure out why you're alive.
(A star, lit up like a cigar/Strung out like a guitar/Maybe you can educate my mind/Explain all these controls/Can't sing, but I've got soul/The goal is elevation . . .)

~*~*~*~*~

House and Wilson: The Stupid, Screwed Up Friendship

Wilson: I have no kids, my marriage sucks. I've only got two things that work for me: this job and this stupid, screwed-up friendship, and neither mattered enough for you to give one lousy speech!
House: They matter.
- "Babies and Bathwater"

Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen
Just two Jersey boys, maybe a little past their prime, but still out to live it up.
(Think I'm going down to the well tonight and I'm gonna drink till I get my fill/I hope when I get older I don't sit around thinking about it, but I probably will/Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory of/Well the time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of/Glory days, yeah, they'll pass you by . . .)

Roadhouse Blues - the Doors
He doesn't like to admit it, but Wilson digs the motorcycle. Especially when he and House go out for rides, then dig into beer and Chinese food.
(Well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer/Well, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer/The future's uncertain, and the end is always near/Let it roll, baby, roll, let it roll, baby, roll/Let it roll, baby, roll, let it roll, all night long . . .)

If You Were Gay - Avenue Q
Oh, come on. You know neither of these guys could take a more romantic relationship seriously. They'd still be THEM.
(If you were queer, I'd still be here/Year after year, because you're dear to me/And I know that you would accept me, too/If I told you today - hey guess what? I'm gay!/But I'm not gay!/I'm happy just being with you/So what should it matter to me what you do in bed with guys?)

Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms
Because at the end of the day, after all the banter, blood, and bullshit, it's always House and Wilson, together. House POV.
(You know, it might not be that bad/You were the best I'd ever had/If I hadn't blown this whole thing years ago/I might not be alone/Tomorrow we can drive around this town/And let the cops chase us around/The past is gone, but something might be found to take its place . . .)

~*~*~*~*~

House/Wilson: An Ethical Responsibility

House: You value our friendship more than your ethical responsibilities?
Wilson: Our friendship IS an ethical responsibility.
- "Control"

Ain't No Easy Way - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
House thinks Wilson's always on the prowl. Wilson thinks House wouldn't know happiness if it bit him on the ass. They're only mostly right.
(It's easy to fall in love/When you fall in love, you know you're done/You've got easy eyes to hunt/When the world above needs your blood/And the cold vein to the richest man/They're paid away to steal our hand/And there ain't no easy way, no, there ain't no easy way out . . .)

You Know You're Right - Nirvana
They've forgiven each other a lot, but you know there's a breaking point. And Wilson's always been good at ending relationships.
(I would never bother you, I would never promise to/I would never follow you, I would never bother you/Never speak a word again, I will crawl away for good/I will move away from here, you won't be afraid of fear/No thought was put into this, always knew it would come to this . . .)

Some Devil - Dave Matthews Band
They're Butch and Sundance at the edge of the cliff, worried about the bandits behind them when it's the fall that's going to kill them.
(One last kiss, one only, and then I'll let you go/Hard for you I've fallen/But you can't break my fall/I'm broken, don't break me when I hit the ground/Some devil, some angel, has got me to the bones . . .)

Running Up That Hill - Placebo
Wilson's good at self-sacrifice, too. Only House is one patient who doesn't let him be the Universal Donor. Wilson POV.
(You don't wanna hurt me? Well let's see how deep the bullet lies/Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder . . ./You and me, you and me wouldn't be unhappy/And if I only could make a deal with God/And get him to swap our places/You'd be running up that road, be running up that hill . . .)

~*~*~*~*~

Closing Track:

You Can't Always Get What You Want - Stephen Kellogg (covering the Rolling Stones)
Because the philosopher Jagger is right: Sometimes you do, indeed, get what you need.
(Went down to the Jefferson drugstore to get my prescription filled/I was standing in line with Mister Jimmy/And oh man, he looked pretty ill . . ./Cause you can't always get what you want/No, you can't always get what you want/But if you try sometimes, oh, you might find/That you can get what you need . . .)

Zip file, via Megaupload, courtesy of the fantastic canadian_ammerz.

Comments are always welcomed, especially just to let me know what you've downloaded.

FIC: A Hundred and Six Miles (Blues Brothers, gen, Elwood)

2007-12-07T06:56:19Z

Title: A Hundred and Six Miles
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy/d_generate_girl)
Rating: Borderline R. Because no matter what the MPAA thinks, there’s got to be foul language in this, seeing as Elwood has a fuckin’ problem with watching his fuckin’ language.
Fandom/Pairing: The Blues Brothers. Fairly gen, though sure, you could read certain bits as slash. I do.
Disclaimer: Do I look like John Landis? Does my bank account resemble Dan Aykroyd’s? Is my last name Belushi? No? Then I don’t own Jake or Elwood. Don’t own any of the songs referenced either - they belong to their original artists. No, really, nothing but love for everyone who owns this stuff. Don't sue.
Spoilers: Major spoilers for both movies - “The Blues Brothers” and “Blues Brothers 2000”
Notes: This is the very long-time-in-coming result of converting swirl_girlx into a fellow Blues Sister. The more-svelte Jake to my more-vocal Elwood, we’ve been on a mission from God ever since. She’s confirmed the fact that no, people will not sell you their children, no matter how many times you ask or how harmless (read: adorable) you look. And for mack_and_mabel, who not only wanted to read this, but beta’d it like nobody’s business. She’s to blame for my idea of how Jake really went out, as well as Sam Borstein. Miss you, chica!
Summary: The thoughts of one Elwood J. Blues, eighteen years after his original mission from God. About the band that’s been his whole life, the kid he has no idea what to do with, and most of all, the brother he never should have had.

Elwood: It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago. We’ve got a full tank of gas, half a packet of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it.
- from the original motion picture, “The Blues Brothers”

I. “And three He lead away . . .”

It didn’t hit him until later.

Wasn’t when he got out of the joint, or during that long night by the side of the road. Wasn’t when he went to see the Penguin, or when he left with the stupid kid she’d saddled him with. Wasn’t even when he got to Willie’s, and after a short conversation, his old drummer took one look at him and shoved him toward the pullout couch in the office, telling him to “get some fuckin’ sleep”.

No, it was when the place was black and shut up, empty of beer-swilling perverts or girls for them to ogle. It was when Elwood was lying on the pullout, trying out a tape of B.B. King tunes in a borrowed player and earphones to drown out the kid‘s television-watching. Christ, they’d always loved B.B. King, singing along to the one LP Duck managed to sneak into the slammer. During “When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer”, Jake would always mug through the line about not meaning a woman any harm and crack the place up. And he realized it then.

Jake was dead.

Jake wouldn’t be throwing himself in front of crazy chicks with flamethrowers. He wouldn’t be playing air drums or chain-smoking his way through record after record, throwing out the ones he didn’t like no matter how much money he’d spent on them. He wouldn’t be sitting shotgun in the Bluesmobile, yelling at Elwood for driving too fast and calling him “motorhead”.

He was just gone.

He’d heard the warden’s words, but they just didn’t mean anything. And come on, how screwy was that - old Ozkerwitz from the property room making warden? Jake would have laughed himself sick to see it. And as terrible as he felt about it, Elwood almost laughed himself sick when Willie told him how Jake had gone out - one too many Orange Whips at a bar, tried to hitch a ride with a trucker (because the idiot had never bothered to learn how to drive), and fell off the back somewhere around Highway 61 and the Missouri city limits.

And Jake wasn’t the only one. Curtis was dead, too. The guy who taught Jake and Elwood everything they knew about the blues, down in that musty old basement with his beat-up guitar and secondhand harp. The guy who really took care of all the kids who came through St. Helen’s, playing them Elmore James and Willie Dixon records. The guy who everyone in the old neighborhood knew on sight, cause of his original black suit and glasses. Shit, man - Curtis, who was shot point-blank in the chest by some of the same hoodlums he’d watched grow up.

Curtis was old, but he wasn’t stupid. And he threw a damn good left hook. But that meant jack shit to the gangs around Calumet City, the street kids who wanted to prove they were just as tough as any Chicago kid. The little shits who acted the same way Jake could’ve ended up, if he hadn’t had Curtis and Elwood to steer him straight, and blues tunes to belt out his anger and fear to.

Even Mercer was gone, the overgrown ape. Jake’s parole officer, who liked Jake and Elwood despite their felonious past. Elwood still remembered him waving to them from the balcony of the Palace Hotel Ballroom, in his three-piece light blue suit. He was a sharp-dressing cat who snuck them Robert Johnson and Memphis Slim records every time he came to Joliet. Elwood would’ve been happier with his harp (which Cropper slid him a year later on his way out), but Jake just whined that he’d keep him up all night playing it.

And what Jake wanted, Jake usually got. He didn’t know how Jake managed it - a corner cell, with a record player and a window, for just Elwood and him. That was Jake for you, though. He knew everyone in the Illinois penal system, and was owed a favor or two by most of them.

There was a reason they called him “Joliet” Jake Blues.

Out in Chicago and back home in Calumet City, they knew Jake as “Elwood’s brother, Jake”. Not in the joint. In there, he was “Jake’s brother, Elwood”, and it only took one mention of Jake’s name to make sure no one laid a hand on his kid brother. Jake’s influence went so far that even when he got out eight years later (Elwood had the longer record, and got 20 years cause he was the driver of the car), they let Elwood keep the corner cell till the day he was paroled.

He’d halfway figured something had happened to Jake when the letters stopped coming. But he’d convinced himself that it was because Jake had hit it big, and started touring the world like they’d always said they would. In his mind, Jake (sometimes with the band, sometimes by himself) was singing to a packed house every night, cartwheeling and jiving to the intro to “Can’t Turn You Loose”. Jake would try to imitate Elwood’s patter, and not quite get it, but it didn’t matter, because Jake made you smile whatever he did.

Jake was the schemer. He was the cocky, devil-may-care, talented as hell lead singer, who you couldn’t help but love. Elwood was the dreamer. The half-assed harp player, background vocalist, and getaway driver who made you laugh despite himself.

Given the choice, he would’ve told God to take him instead of Jake. Because who could honestly see Elwood as the frontman of the Blues Brothers? Without Jake, he and the band were just a bunch of fairly-talented nobodies who couldn’t sing a note of any of the stuff they played. Without Jake, there was no one to tie the songs together and make people listen to them. Without Jake, Elwood’s voice was too deep, untempered and unpolished.

Without Jake, who was Elwood supposed to dance with?

~*~*~*~

II. “Man, you know you’d miss the music . . .”

He had just been bullshitting Cab when he told him about the band and offered to let him join.

Sure, the guy was Curtis’ son, but a police commander? In the Blues Brothers? Jake would have slapped him senseless and reminded him that his record was longer than most Dylan songs and maybe Cab might disapprove of recently paroled felons. Sides, all he’d really wanted was the cash to pay for the new Bluesmobile, and the kid had taken care of that for him.

Not half bad at lifting wallets, but annoying as hell to drive with.

Stupid kid hadn’t shut up the entire ride to Willie‘s, asking questions about who Cab and Curtis were, why the band had split up, and why he couldn’t drive a normal car. He’d told the kid to ask Willie about the band (Willie wouldn‘t say nothin‘ about it anyway), and wouldn’t answer the other questions about Cab and Curtis. And he drove the fuckin’ car because it was the new Bluesmobile and it topped out at 160 mph on regular gas.

He should’ve known it would come up. The kid was rummaging through Elwood’s tapes, pulling out the ones labeled “me and Jake” and pestering him about “who the hell is Jake?”. He’d finally caved, and let the kid stick one in the player - Joliet Penitentiary, October 12th, 1981. Their first gig after they got locked in the slammer, and Jesus, why‘d it have to be that one?

“Jailhouse Rock” started blaring out of the speakers, and Elwood couldn’t stop his wince when Jake’s growl (warden threw a party in the county jail, prison band was there and they began to wail) kicked it all off.

And the kid started in on his questions again. Why’d you go to jail? Who’s Jake? What happened to the band? And Elwood snapped. Ripped the tape outta the deck, tossed it to the backseat, and tuned the radio to the most obnoxious rap station he could find and pretended not to hear the anklebiter’s whining.

He was fuckin’ sick of everything, anyway.

Elwood had planned to just go back to the aerosol factory, but Willie’d offered him a position, emceeing and providing a little onstage security for the club. The girls were pretty good at keeping the customers off them, but he could spot trouble where the bouncers couldn’t. He’d taken it, on the condition that he didn‘t have to sing. He knew it could never match up to performing with Jake and the band, anyway.

He was all set, until Sandra caught him riffing a little on the harp with Junior and Lonnie before the club opened one day. She’d begged and pleaded for him to sing a number - this Taj Mahal song that she sometimes used. One that Jake had used to belt out while they were on the road together.

He was a sucker for a pair of big brown eyes. Always had been. And as soon as he got up onstage, and started the song, throwing a little drawl on the chorus like Jake used to (she left me a mule to ride, the train pulled out, I swung on behind), he forgot it was supposed to be just a one-time thing.

He started imitating Jake - swinging around the pole to tip his hat to Carla, winking at Sandra on the line about coming down to see him sometime, kicking on the “hey, hey, hey”. Then he broke out his harp for the solo, though it had been a while since he’d played that particular song and he was a little flat.

And holy shit. Not only were the customers clapping and whistling (and actually paying attention to the song), but the kid was as well. He’d come down the stairs from the office to hear what the fuss was about, and he’d been completely ignoring the strippers in favor of tapping his foot to the beat. His face was frozen in an expression of jaw-dropping dawning comprehension mixed with shock.

Like he’d been hit by lightning and wanted to try it again.

Elwood knew the kid’s expression well - he used to see it on Jake’s face every time his brother found a new song to add to their repertoire. Right before Jake would sit down and listen to the record over and over to get the vocals down and figure out places where they might be able to add a few dance steps.

As he finished up the number, he slipped to the back of the stage, completely ignoring the cheers. He almost didn’t remember descending the steps, or handing the microphone back to one of the bouncers. Willie was standing there at the bottom of the steps, slowly nodding his head.

“Missed the music, huh, man?”

Elwood couldn’t explain it - it was like someone had lit a firecracker in him. He felt like he was about to start jittering and jiving, like Jake had done in that church when Reverend Cleophus asked him if he’d seen the light. Elwood had not only seen the goddamn light, he’d found God, the Devil, Buddha, and the Easter Bunny as well. Shit, this was what he missed! That rush he got when the horn section hit “Can’t Turn You Loose”, and he walked out with his briefcase and handcuffs. It was like flying, flipping, fucking, and falling all at once, and he couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just bullshit - he could still fuckin’ do this!

“I wanna sing, Willie. I’ll make up the extra shifts, but man, you gotta let me do a whole set with the band.”

Willie just smiled, threw up his hands, and said “Aw, shit. Here we go again.”

He started doing set after set with Junior and Lonnie that week, falling back into his old performance gags - the briefcase (he‘d given the handcuffs to Jake when he got out of the joint, and he didn’t know where the hell they’d gotten to when Jake died), the patter before each song, even just screwing around on his harp when there was no harp solo to be found in the song. He liked Junior and Lonnie - they were good guys, real fellow Chicago bluesmen - but he couldn’t help thinking about the band.

How good Matt’s signature guitar would sound under “Looking for a Fox”. How surprising a singer Mack was, and wondering what he’d make of “Soul Man”. How Murph and Mr. Fabulous would have kicked up the bridge of “Cheaper to Keep Her” a little more.

It fell completely into place when Buster came up to him one night after a set, holding out Elwood’s battered silver Marine Band harp and asking Elwood to teach him to play.

~*~*~*~

III. “Only one thing I can say about that boy . . .”

It wasn’t the suit that made you a part of the Blues Brothers. It wasn’t the car, or the shades, or the hat. They helped, but they weren’t the defining factor of the Blues Brothers. Having them would mark you as a Blues Brother, but it wasn’t what mattered.

It was the music - always the music - and the brotherhood.

And sometimes the brotherhood bit pissed him off. Elwood supposed he was too used to it being just him and Jake in the Bluesmobile, but every time they set off to find another band member, it seemed to get louder. Mack and Buster chattering about being on the road. Mack and Buster making fun of Elwood’s singing. Mack asking too many questions about what the band was like back in the day. Buster asking too many questions about Jake and Cab and Curtis.

He didn’t know when he’d stopped thinking of Buster as “the kid” and started thinking of him as “Buster”. It might have been while teaching him how to blow the harp. Might have been when they stopped to buy the suits, hats, and glasses for Mack and Buster. Mack had been uncomfortable - he was a jeans-and-t-shirts kind of guy - and kind of shocked at how respectable he looked in the tailored suit.

Elwood wasn’t. Sam did good work.

He’d discovered Sam Borstein (who actually was a Hasidic diamond merchant on the side) back when he‘d lived a block over from the Plymouth, and had been going to him for his suits ever since he was old enough to wear one. Usually had him make two - the other one a size up in the pants, but the same sized jacket for Jake - and the order for three vastly differently-sized suits confused the hell outta him. Sam had been taken aback even more when Elwood gave him Buster’s measurements, asking him the now-familiar question of “this your son?”.

No, the kid was not his, thank you very much, but it got Elwood thinking. He’d almost forgotten Buster was a St. Helen’s orphan, like he and Jake had been. He shouldn’t have been so shocked to see the same behaviors repeating themselves in Buster. Smoking Chesterfields cause the coughing fits they induced got you out of catechism. The reflexive wince when you cursed, thinking you were about to get walloped by the ruler. The fascination with the gritty roughness of the blues, cause it wasn’t some syrupy hymn written before even the Penguin was born.

He’d almost pulled the car over in shock when he’d reflexively thrown the cigarette lighter out the window. First, because Jake used to do the same thing on every car they’d had since Elwood was 17. And second, because he recognized that tone in his voice - the one Curtis had used to use on them. Curtis was like their dad, and there was no fuckin’ way he was going to start acting like Buster’s.

But the stupid little shit had weaseled his way into Elwood’s life but good. He’d brought back the suits from Sam’s, and the look on the kid’s face when he found out that he actually had new clothes was really fuckin’ familiar.

Seems the Penguin hadn’t relaxed her rule on clothing since he and Jake had left - you got two sets of whatever happened to fit you that week, and you had to put them back in the pile when you were done. He and Jake had gotten used to sharing clothes they either stole or bought with their own money, cause it meant nobody else at the orphanage had worn them.

They’d had to learn what it was like to keep something, ‘stead of having it taken away from you.

Nothin’ belonged to you at St. Helen’s. Hell, all he and Jake had owned for the longest time were a couple of old comic books, a bottle of JD Elwood had swiped from Curtis’ stash for Jake’s 16th birthday, and a battered pair of dress shoes they switched out for their sneakers on court dates.

Should have figured Buster never owned a set of clothes in his life. Buster didn’t even have Jake to steal him sneakers from the place up the block. Didn’t have Jake to distract the nuns when he snuck in past curfew. Didn’t have Jake to tell him jokes when he was sick or keep him company in remedial math.

Elwood was lucky. He’d never thought of how bad he could’ve had it without Jake. And so yeah, he’d kind of felt bad for the kid. When Mack mentioned one time while they stopped at a drive-thru for lunch that Buster hated when it got dark, because it meant he’d have to sleep in the backseat of the car or on the floor of some shitty hotel, Elwood decided something. The kid was gonna have as much of a normal life as possible. And if it meant a little extra effort on Elwood’s part, so be it.

Jake would have laughed his ass off to see Elwood taking apart the trunk of the Bluesmobile to fit a small bed and a few drawers into it. Would have rolled his eyes and shook his head, asking Elwood if he was gonna try to fit some plumbing in for a toilet.

But he would have understood.

Cause you didn’t get through St. Helen’s without learning to appreciate a clean, warm bed and a rare moment of peace and quiet. That was the reason they’d escaped down to Curtis’ basement - no one went down there, so there was no one to make noise. A big old space heater and a rattletrap refrigerator made the only noise outside of old blues records and Curtis’ scratchy voice.

It was why they first went down there (well, also because the Penguin was after them about throwing around a baseball inside and breaking a window).

It wasn’t why they kept coming back.

They kept coming back because the old janitor knew a thing or two about loneliness and uncertainty. Knew what it was like to be unwanted. And didn’t mind schooling a couple of white hoodlums in the blues. Curtis would’ve liked Mack, but he would’ve schooled Buster.

The next night, Elwood left a note on the backseat telling Buster to open the trunk and to be careful with the tape of Robert Johnson tunes on the dresser.

~*~*~*~

IV. “He heard one call his name . . .”

“Uh, Elwood, I think we’ve got a rebellion on our hands.”

Of course. Of course they all wanted to quit. Maury’d fucked up the booking again - and what was it with having to play country-western songs on the fly? They’d had to pile into the Bluesmobile, all eleven of them, and drive the thirty-five miles past Yazoo City before breaking down. They’d gotten stuck in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty much all Elwood’s fault. Mack was just saying what he’d known himself for the past thirty-five miles.

He couldn’t blame them, not when they were right.

Christ, why did he have to be the one in charge? All the guys were looking to him to convince them this wasn’t just some crazy mission doomed to land them right back in the joint again. Mack and Buster were looking to him to convince them they hadn’t put their faith in the wrong person. They all wanted reassurances - some kind of motivational speech to make things all better.

Elwood had always left the motivational speeches up to Jake. Because Jake could always find the right words. Nobody’d ever teased Jake about having a funny voice and sounding like a walking encyclopedia. He’d just light up a Chesterfield and talk between drags about anything in the world, his soft drawl at total odds with the rest of him. The way he talked about the music was like it was a living, breathing thing - and he didn’t stop til you saw it the way he saw it. Sometimes he didn’t even pause for breath, just driving his point home like the bass line of a good song.

Elwood? Elwood had trouble not stuttering when you asked him a question. He was no leader, and the guys knew it as well as he did. Saw the challenge in their eyes and the plea in Mack and Buster’s. Saw in everyone else’s eyes what he’d never needed to see in Jake’s.

Don’t let us down.

The problem was, he’d gotten used to letting people down, ever since he was a kid.

It had started when he was five. The Penguin had called him into her office and told him to quit hanging around Jake - that Jake would come to a bad end, and so would Elwood if he continued to be Jake’s friend. He’d quietly told the old hag to leave him alone, and went back to playing catch with Jake out in the street. The disapproving shake of her head had stayed with him, no matter how many times he threw and caught the beat-up baseball Jake weaseled out of one of the bigger kids.

She hadn’t breathed another word about it, until he sat in her office eight days ago. Said she was sorry to hear about Jake - sorry, his ass. Didn’t make her any less right.

He had let her down. Let Curtis down when he stopped writing him from the joint, mistakenly believing that Curtis didn’t want to be reminded of how much Elwood had colossally fucked up. Let Jake down, most of all. What kind of guy doesn’t know when his partner, his best friend, his brother, for Chrissakes, was dead?

It didn’t surprise him that he’d let the band down, too. He didn’t know what to tell them - just stammered something about not blaming them - and had wandered off to sit on some old hollowed-out log near the edge of the woods. Hadn’t really noticed he’d taken out his knife and was messing around with a twig he’d picked up.

They’d taught all the guys on Elwood’s block in Joliet a bit of woodcarving a few years back. He liked it. Kept his mind off things, and the rhythm was almost like countin’ the beats on a song. He’d made a whistle (sounded like Jake’s bird call when you blew it) for one of the guards, and pretty soon, he’d made a nice little bit of change making duplicates for the other guys.

“This is not being a very good mentor.”

The kid was standing there with his arms crossed, looking again to Elwood like he was supposed to have the answer to everything. Mentor? He didn’t even know what the word meant, and he didn’t really care.

But Buster just kept yammering away at him. Finally, he started listening - and nearly sliced his finger open.

“ . . . no pharmaceutical product could ever equal the rush you get when the band hits that groove. When the people are dancing and shoutin’ and swaying, and the house is rockin’ . . .”

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ.

His words - no, Jake’s words that Elwood had repeated half in joke to Willie - coming from Buster. The kid had ditched the sarcasm, and his voice was filled with honest-to-God conviction. Like he actually knew the truth in what he was saying, and shit, Elwood supposed the kid did, after the stunt he’d pulled at the Cynthiana gig.

Both him and Mack had asked, cajoled, and finally threatened Buster to stay in the back of the stage with Murph and Willie, in case Cab and the cops showed up and bullets started flying. And what did the little shit do?

Walked to the front of the stage, dug right into Elwood’s briefcase, hooked up his harp, and tore into the solo from “Riders”.

Elwood and Mack had wondered where the hell the sound was coming from, and finally looked down in disbelief. Buster was ignoring them both, and doing a fairly decent job on the song. Losing some of the slides and quick staccatos cause he couldn’t hold his breath for too long, but nailing the pitch on each note.

Elwood had to smile when the kid hit the final slide. Didn’t stop him from grabbing the harp and briefcase from Buster when the song ended and stashing it next to the front seat of the Bluesmobile. Kid needed to keep his grubby paws to himself - and maybe Elwood would think about getting him his own harp.

But the kid had a taste for the spotlight now.

“The music, man. You know you’d miss the music.”

Elwood supposed he had the same problem. Couldn’t just walk away. Couldn’t keep going the way he was. And no Jake to fight his battles for him.

He got up, went back over to the boys, and let loose with everything he’d kept locked inside for eighteen years. All the big words and ideals he’d learned reading the encyclopedias in the prison library. All the names of the great blues artists who’d come before him, the guys he and Jake had grown up listening to. Everything he’d come to despise about the music trends over the past decade.

Everything the guys would be giving up, should they walk away now.

And when he was done, he turned around and started walking toward Louisiana, his new brothers in blues by his side.

~*~*~*~

I. Taj Mahal, “John the Revelator”.
II. Elwood (Dan Aykroyd), to Willie Hall about the band; later Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) to Elwood.
III. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “Born in Chicago”.
IV. Blues Brothers Band, “Riders in the Sky”.

Feedback is, as always, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

FIC: Second Verse, Same as the First (Wrestling, Shawn/Hunter)

2007-11-21T21:34:12Z

Title: Second Verse, Same as the First
Author: Drea (d_generate_girl)
Rating: Mild R, for language, drug use, and a bit of adult content.
Fandom/Pairing: Wrestling. Shawn/Hunter
Disclaimer: Oh, you'd better believe my last name ain't McMahon. I don't own a single hair on either Shawn or Hunter's heads. Dammit.
Spoilers: Um, it helps if you at least have a general idea of the run of DX - both old and new. I'd settle for knowing that Shawn and Hunter are professional wrestlers, and that they're long-time best friends, okay?
Author's Notes: Written first for empressnan's prompt of "first kisses". Much love to hhhbkev for her awesome nitpicky beta skills, and to carla_scribbles (even though the heathen child doesn't watch wrestling) for letting me wibble at her when I got stuck halfway through, and for actually reading it when it was done.
Summary: Hunt's got a bit of deja vu when it comes to Shawn's promises. Third time's a charm, though.

Technically, it was our third kiss that counted most.

Everyone knows the first. I don't count the first, for a number of reasons. Shawn was coming off a high, downing coffee in the ring to keep himself functional - only kissed me cause Mark double-dog-dared him to. Should've known, after that incident with the gauze, that Shawn couldn't turn down a double-dog-dare if his life depended on it.

Fucker dared Shawn anyway.

Truth be told, I don't really remember anything about it but the coffee on Shawn's breath and the shocked roar of the crowd. Shawn's lips on mine and Shawn's hands in my hair all just kind of blur together until all I remember is Shawn shoving me away and milking the crowd's reaction for all it was worth. I remember Jo smothering that "why am I not surprised?" grin of hers and Rick rolling his eyes. But most of all, I remember how Shawn wouldn't look me in the eye afterward.

Obviously, he didn't want to talk about it, so I waited until after the show to catch up with him. The arena was deserted, and I found him in the parking garage, of all places. Six floors later, I was looking everywhere but up, and whaddaya know? - there was Shawn, sitting on a concrete ledge and chain-smoking, with his sunglasses still on. Probably hiding reddened eyes from his latest drug trip again. You couldn't have paid me to sit up there, but heights had never bothered Shawn - I can recall far too many road-trips where Kid and Shawn would trade tree-climbing stories.

Me? I'd have rather tried to choke out Shamrock than climb up there after him.

Shawn still wouldn't look at me, just took drag after drag of his cigarette and looked out at the Penn State buildings, dark except for the glow of the streetlamps. Fine with me - Shawn just gets like that sometimes - so I just sat there, letting him decide when it was okay to talk. I was actually about to throw in the towel and leave him to find his own way back to the hotel when Shawn threw the cigarette butt to the ground, and leaned over, hooking a finger into my shirt, and kissed me slowly and softly on the lips before letting go.

That was our second.

I almost don't even remember it happening if not for the taste of tobacco on my lower lip he left behind. But damned if it didn't throw me for a loop. I had to grab onto the concrete ledge beside me to keep from falling, and I couldn't stop thinking - what was this about?

Was this a "thanks, Hunt, for not tattling to Vince that I was high at a taping"? Was it one of Shawn's usual I'm-high-so-you-should-cuddle-with-me impulses?

"Hunt, stop freaking out, will you?" Weird. Shawn usually wasn't the mind-reader between us. "This isn't because I'm high."

I raised an eyebrow. "It's not?"

Shawn slid his sunglasses off, revealing surprisingly clear blue eyes. No redness. Only a shadow underneath leftover from last night's partying and popping LSD with the boys, but it wasn't the deep circles the makeup girls had been hiding with loads of concealer. Hell, I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Shawn in this good shape - definitely months ago, maybe not even since Kev and Scott had left.

"Nope. I'm off the booze, the pot, and the juice. I've been completely clean for approximately one hour and seventeen minutes."

I actually stuttered, trying to get the words out. "You wh- what? Why?"

"You told me to, idiot." Bastard actually laughed and poked me in the chest. "Cause you were right. I finally got sick of the mood-swings and the letdowns. Finally had enough."

He was lying. Oh, not flat-out lying - that was never really Shawn's strong suit - but that not-quite-truth manipulation that Shawn had always, ever since a military childhood, been really good at. That was Shawn for you. He'd never lie to your face, just slide enough of the truth into whatever he wanted to cover up and flash that damn grin of his at you, and you'd forget that anything was wrong.

And usually, I'm the only one with the balls to call Shawn on his fibs.

"No, it's not," I said, "I know you better than that. You're not nearly that noble, Shawnie."

Shawn scowls - he hates that nickname, and he really hates that I'm right. And I'm glad there's actually a chance of him listening to me, though that chance has been getting slimmer ever since Scotty and Kev took off for Atlanta. I miss those long car rides with Kid air-drumming to Judas Priest and Scotty backseat-driving, bitching to no one in particular about my lane-changing skills. I miss Kev trying (and failing) to keep order. I think I even miss Shawn's drunken yowling to "More than a Feeling", but that may be the knock on the head Bret gave me talking.

Good times. Times that were few and far between now than me and Shawn were split up on Vince's orders. Something about the Kliq mocking kayfabe yet again. Fucking Vince and his antiquated ideas about the business. Who the hell cares whether or not Shawn and I share a car, hotel room, dressing room, or any other room?

"Oh, fuck you, Hunt. I'm trying to be serious here."

"No, you're not. You're jerking me around like you always do."

Still not looking at me, Shawn slid down from the ledge. He ran a hand through his shower-wet hair and turned to lean against the concrete, biting his lip in that telltale "how do I put this?" way.

"I'm done with everything but the pain pills. I - I can't give them up. My back's too fucked up. But the pot, the juice, the rest of the pills, even the booze - I'm done."

I didn't know what to say. If I'd truthfully said the first thing on my mind, I'd have blurted out "I don't believe you", and he'd have clocked me for it. So I didn't say anything. Not when he promised "you hear me, Hunt? I'm done". Not when he tried like hell for three weeks to live up to my expectations.

And not even when he broke his promise.

Because like the idiot I am, I did believe him. Shawn looked me in the eye that night, and said he was through with all the shit he was putting into his body. I believed him through Dallas and the casket match that broke Shawn's back. Believed him through Mania 14 and what we thought was his final match. Believed him even when Shawn pulled away from me and found God and Becca, and had Cam a year later. Believed him even when he stopped speaking to me in '01. I've got no excuse, really - I knew what was happening. Kev would call me every week or so, and there'd be a throwaway "Shawn was out of it yesterday" or a pointed "Shawn's not doing so hot".

Stupid fucking me thought it'd sort itself out. That he'd either scare himself straight (so to speak), or realize that he wasn't getting any younger and ease himself off the pills. Becca and religion having that big an effect never entered the picture. Mainly because the thought of Shawn tied down with responsibility depressed the hell out of me.

I was fucking ecstatic when I picked up my cell one day and saw Shawn's name on the caller ID. I picked up, heard the smile in his voice, and it was like he'd never gone. We were on the phone for hours, long after Steph had fallen asleep in our bed and Shawn was whispering so as not to wake Cam.

And we just talked.

About marriage - how Shawn and Becca got hitched in Graceland, how me and Steph couldn't so much as CC Linda on an email without her hinting at it. About kids - how excited we were for me to meet Cam, how he just knew I'd be a fantastic father one day. About his new faith, even if I didn't understand and probably never would.

Everything but what we'd almost had eight years ago. Shawn wouldn't admit to it, not with his shiny new Bible telling him it was a sin, and not with me convinced I'd been wrong about what might have happened that night.

He was in amazing shape. His back had healed up, and he was doing moonsaults off the top rope when we'd thought, back in '98, that he'd barely be able to walk again. He was cleaner than clean - no booze, no drugs, not even any pain pills. He thought he was invincible.

But then there came the comeback. Shawn desperately wanted to get in the ring, but Vince wouldn't clear it. Shawn's back could have gone out at any second, and what could Vince possibly do if that happened? Even though everyone could see it was killing Shawn to watch Dwayne and Mark and Chris and Adam preparing for big matches, having to sit on the sidelines as Ric got in the ring at 53 when he couldn't at 37.

If there was one thing I could sympathize with, it was the absolute suckitude of sitting around while your friends built their careers without you. I can't forget that rehab room in Birmingham and an entire year of doing absolutely nothing. No way I was letting him go in there alone. Shawn was still my best friend: if he was going to try a comeback on that surgically repaired back, I was damn sure going to be the other guy in the ring.

And really, Kev and Scotty would have had me killed if I'd let Shawn go in there with just anyone.

So we planned the match around possible contingency plans: if Shawn's back went out at the beginning, it'd be a total beatdown to him and a slight comeback for a mercy pin from me; if it didn't hold through the chair shots, we'd do a ref bump on Earl and a KO on Shawn; if it went out after the table spots, it'd be a double countout; and if it held through to the end, he'd get the clean pin.

Lots of incentive for him to hold out past the point of normal human endurance, yeah, but this is Shawn we're talking about. It's not a match if he hasn't done at least three suicidal spots. And I was prepared to go along for the ride.

That day in Long Island, we sat in the empty arena, watching the ring crew set everything up. Didn't even talk about the match for a long time, focusing on petty, stupid things instead. Mark's new bike. Jay hooking up with Trish. That gang in development everybody kept calling the "second coming of the Kliq" - Lesnar, Cena, Batista, Jindrak, and Orton the third. Even what we were going to have for dinner later.

Stupid, but I'd missed just bullshitting with Shawn. Sitting around, talking, not talking - just being with him.

And then he leaned over and kissed me. Deep and slow, swallowing my gasp of surprise with a sexy-as-hell swipe of his tongue to my lower lip and pulling away with a puff of hot breath. Rested his forehead against mine and threaded his right hand through my hair, knocking my ball cap off in the process. I didn't even notice as I listened to his ragged whisper of "missed you, Hunt".

That was our third kiss . . . and that's why it's the one that I count the most. Because it was the one that he meant.

~*~*~*~*~

Feedback is, as always, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

YULETIDE! AIEEE!

2007-10-19T19:19:17Z

Um, in case you can't tell, I love Yuletide. It is my favorite time of year, and one of the very best things about fandom.

So, if you're my Yuletide Author (shh, not allowed to say "Santa" anymore), come on in!

First of all, let me just say THANK YOU. Last year was my first year in Yuletide, and it was such an amazing and wonderful experience. All of the authors are so ridiculously talented, and as the recipient of two amazing stories, I was so overwhelmed with awesome. Having a story written for me is just such a cool experience.

Secondly, here's a couple good ideas of what I do/don't like. Here's my letter from last year, which is still accurate for the likes/dislikes. And feel free to nose around the journal - all my stories are tagged in my memories. Nothing much to add to that - chances are, if you write something that makes YOU happy, I will be happy.

But if you'd like some more details - here they are, spoilers for the fandoms very much included:

Fandom-Specific

1) Mad Men: I love Joan Holloway and Don Draper like Cookie Monster loves cookies. They are such amazingly well-written/acted characters, and I'll never get tired of delving into their respective lives. We know the most about Don because he's the main character, but it's fascinating to go into his past as Dick Whitman. What the heck happened to make him reinvent himself? Joan, on the other hand, is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in brass ones the size of TEXAS. Joan is brassy and strong and I love her. If they're not your thing, as I mentioned, Sal and Helen are two of my other favorite characters. Your rule of thumb with me and this fandom is Backstory + possible sex = LOVE.

2) Jeff and Michael Shaara - Civil War Trilogy: Okay, besides carla_scribbles and myself, I know of NO ONE who even likes the series enough to want to try and fic it. So, should you write this for me, I will quite possibly declare myself your slave for life. Anything with Mira Hancock would be brilliant, though I'm heavily inclined toward a Mira/Win/Lew threesome. Porn or no porn, if you write my three favorite characters in an adult relationship and in-character historically, I will love you forever. And James Longstreet, in any form, is absolute gold.

3) Across the Universe: Okay, my Max/Jude goggles are firmly in place. Buddyslash would make me the happiest camper ever, but I'm definitely not averse to an exploration of a possible Max/Jude/Lucy threesome. It's the 60's, so go nuts with the trippy drugs, sex, and music connections.

4) Profiler: What it says in my request - well-written, in-character, sap-free Bailey/Sam. That's what I've been looking for since the show aired. I despair of finding any really good Bailey/Sam, and it would probably validate my adolescent shipping preferences if you wrote me some. Nope, not demanding at all. :P And okay, I would absolutely not be averse to some Bailey-Grace or Bailey-John interaction either.

And really, you are absolutely free to disregard and and all of my request details. They really are more like suggestions than guidelines. If you'd like some more insight, talk to carla_scribbles (though not on her journal, I'd probably read it). She's as close as you can get to my brain without actually looking inside my head.

Bring out your ficlets!

2007-09-19T03:56:00Z

Ack, have a bunch of these lying around - little bits I wrote for various people and challenges. Three Carnivale, two Firefly, one wrestling.

"Ira, you're out of your mind," Justin said, firmly digging his heels into the carpet. "I refuse to be a part of this, and that's all there is to it."

Iris had to roll her eyes. For a man with a good foot of height on her, he was surprisingly inept at genuinely disagreeing with her, as evidenced by the petulent whine in his voice. She ignored him, keeping her grip on his hand as she coaxed him through the doorway and into the sacristy, shoving the door closed behind them and wedging her hip between him and the door.

"Stop it, Justin. It won't kill you to be adventurous for once."

"Adven- this is not adventure! This is virtually suicide! Do you have any idea what would happen should anyone find us? Bishop McNaughton? Norman?"

She pushed his vestments off his shoulders, dropping the cloth onto the floor of the sacristy - it wouldn't get too dirty, she always kept the room spotless - and hooked her fingers into the collar of his shirt. Unbuttoning one button at a time, she answered him.

"I." There went the collar.

"Don't." The swell of his upper chest revealed.

"Particularly." Hands at the level of his breastbone.

"Care." Smooth, pale stomach framed by the black linen.

"Right." Placed a kiss at the indentation of his navel.

"Now." Yanked the shirt out from his dress pants, tugging on the tails to bring him flush against her.

His voice came out in that rumble of a purr that never failed to turn her insides to liquid. "Good."

She could see it in his eyes: she'd blown right past his ineffectual barriers, and God help her, he was going to repay her in spades. Iris stifled a shriek as he picked her up and firmly planted her against the door. He placed one hand over her mouth, and unzipped his pants with the other. He shoved her panties aside as he brought his mouth to her ear.

"But we're going to have to be quiet about it."

~*~*~*~*~

He trudged up the stairs with heavy footsteps, the thick cotton of his shirt doing nothing to assuage the itch spreading between his shoulder blades and trailing down his spine. Hiroshi hadn't displayed any sympathy for him, though he was quite obviously a first-time customer.

Perverse to think that there was any virginity left in him to lose.

It had hurt, as he'd known it would. He'd tried (odin, dva, tri, chetyre, p'at, shest', sem') to count the taps of the mallet against his back, but after a while, they all bled together. Hiroshi's weight atop the backs of his thighs was neither heavy nor seductive enough to distract, and while the pain had been delicious at first, it did not compare to the sting of the crop against his flesh.

Irina had been his distraction then, as she had always been his temptation. He had lowered his thoughts beneath the pain (instead of rising above it, as he'd done for countless years and innumerable lashes of penance) and thought of her. The sparkle of blue eyes in laughter. The droop of red curl across her brow as she slept. That tantalizing (and yes, Tantalus was condemned to hell as well) glimpse of white satin and smooth inner thigh he'd glimpsed before he'd left.

He had no doubt his parting had displeased her. There was no mistaking THAT look in his sister's eye - the "get the hell over here, Alexei, or so help me, you will regret it" look.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he rounded the bannister and intended to go straight to his bedroom. Except he still regretting leaving Iris earlier that night. Still wanted her approval of what he was becoming. Yes, she'd stood beneath the branches of an oak and vowed to see through the building of their shining city on a hill. Yes, she'd always known what was inside him, but did she realize that soon, it would be written on his very skin?

Ira, ya vsegda nuzhdals'a v Vas.

Hand outstretched, he turned the doorknob.

And stopped.

Because it was locked. The door - her door - was locked. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, and she'd blocked the only path he'd ever known how to navigate. He sank against the door, resting his head on the solid wood, knowing there was nothing he could do if she'd decided to turn her back on him. Irina Belyakov possessed an even stronger will than her brother, and he knew that this was the stopping point.

She had set herself against him. So be it. But oh, his Ira should have known better.

Forswear thy foolish ways.

~*~*~*~*~

Libby used to dream of her wedding day.

Nights when Mama put the red pig out, her and Dora Mae would bed down in one of the empty truck beds. Huddle together under the lantern and blankets and plan for that faraway day when they'd have two pennies to rub together. When they'd make enough money from working the cooch to go out to Hollywood and get real acting jobs. Dora Mae would be the next Marlene Dietrich, with Libby as the next Jean Harlow - not that Libby liked Jean Harlow as much as Greta Garbo, but Dora Mae said Greta would never be as popular as Jean, because blondes were better. Everyone knew that.

Dora Mae wanted a Southern-style wedding, like the ones they saw in the fashion plates. Petticoats and parasols for the ladies, tailcoats and canes for the gentlemen. Libby would be in peach chiffon as maid of honor - because Libby would never marry before her older sister, of course - with a matching bonnet with tea roses around the brim. Dora Mae would have at least seven brideswomen, and her husband the same number of groomsmen. Momma would wear lilac silk, and Daddy a real top hat.

It wouldn't be no on-the-fly affair, not for Dora Mae. Everything would be planned out perfectly.

Sometimes Libby wanted the same kind of wedding as Dora Mae. Thought maybe they'd marry brothers, so's they could have the same wedding day. And other times, she wanted something different - a small church wedding with Momma, Daddy, and Dora Mae there to bear witness. Dora Mae would wear silk - something of Lila or Ruthie's - and Libby would wear real pearls around her neck, like Garbo did in Love.

Then came Babylon.

Babylon, and Jonesy carrying Dora Mae's carved-up body back to the Carnivale. It was the first time she'd worn real silk, Lila and Ruthie tucking it neatly around her so the dusty wind wouldn't blow her skirt up. Libby cried when they buried her, cried when Stangler stood before the cart, and cried again when Daddy promised her a new start and once again couldn't leave Momma.

Except that last one hurt her more than anything, because Sofie was there to see it. Sofie wasn't like Dora Mae or Libby. Sofie had class - had beautiful clothes she made herself, took care of her mama, and read cards for the rubes instead of stripping for them. Dark-eyed Sofie, who was Libby's only real friend anymore, now that Dora Mae was gone.

Sometimes, after passing the bottle back and forth with Sofie, Libby would go back to her cot and wish she weren't such a chicken. That she could be like Momma, who knew how attractive she was and didn't give a lick of caring who was watching. If Libby weren't so scared of what Sofie might think, she'd pull the rum bottle right out of Sofie's hand, throw down a slug, and kiss her right on the mouth. Didn't matter who was watching.

Sofie would smile that hesitant smile of hers, and then lick a spilled drop of alcohol off Libby's collarbone. Draw aside the rough white cotton shift and press wet kisses to Libby's neck and shoulders before licking a wicked trail down to her breasts. Libby knows her tits aren't the hottest - not like Momma's or Dora Mae's - but her customers like 'em well enough. Sofie'd grin widely at her before taking one of Libby's nipples in her mouth, sucking and biting at the tender flesh and not letting up no matter how much Libby begged. She'd have three fingers up Libby's skirt and playing with her clit before Libby had the time to scream, and as soon as she got the chance, Libby'd pay her back by showing her that men ain't the only ones who like Libby's mouth on them.

Libby dreams of black-eyed girls and the slow burn of illegal hooch now.

~*~*~*~*~

As a child, Simon slept very well. He never had nightmares. Nothing really kept him up at night. River was forever getting in trouble for playing on her swingset at 3 am because "the breeze was perfectly angled to push me even higher", or practicing battements tendues and grande plies on the kitchen floor in her pointe shoes at 5 am because she felt more limber then. Not Simon - he'd be asleep in his bed when it was curfew and up for school the next day.

In medical school, Simon was never the type of student who pulled all-nighters studying for exams. In his opinion, you either knew what you were doing, or you did not. Simon studied a chapter of anatomy every night before he went to sleep at a reasonable hour, and awoke early to go jogging around the quad for some exercise. He drove his roommate insane, but Simon had become Doctor Simon Tam, and the last he heard of his roommate, Noel Vincent was a used-ship salesman out on Beylix.

These past few weeks on Serenity, he'd become used to waking up for River's nightmares, soothing her with promises to never leave and dyasthaproponil when nothing else would work. But he never woke up himself in the middle of rest cycle like the rest of the crew. Never did pull-ups in the cargo bay like Jayne, or finished up work like Kaylee. Never sat in the cockpit to watch a planetside sunrise like Wash and Zoe, stayed up reading like Shepherd Book, or paced the decks like Mal.

So it was very odd for Simon to find River out cold in bed and himself completely unable to sleep late one night. He'd tried everything - exercise, reading, listening to the Cortex, meditation - and was starting to go just a little mad with boredom and frustration. Tzao gao, what was it going to take?

He figured maybe Mal had been onto something, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt before exiting the guest quarters. The decks were chilly, and he rubbed the goosebumps on his arms absently as he walked the catwalks in the cargo bay - carefully, of course, lest he slip on a slippery beam and fall. He found himself, for no particular reason, outside of Inara's shuttle. Simon hesitated, then knocked softly on the door. If she were asleep, she wouldn't hear it.

"Ching jin," she called softly.

The door pushed open easily - Kaylee had recently fixed the squeak on them - and Inara stood to greet him, wrapped in a beautiful green silk robe he recognized as made by one of the designers on Osiris.

"Simon, what a surprise. What can I do for you?"

He hesitated before entering, closing the door behind him and sitting awkwardly on one of her overstuffed pillows. "I can't sleep. I was out wandering the cargo bay, not sure why, and I just- I wanted to talk to you."

She smiled, that serene smile that marked her immediately as a Companion. He'd known a few on Osiris, even employed one as an escort to a dinner while he was in medical school, but Inara was in a class of her own. She had been one of the first on Serenity to trust him, ordering Mal to cut and run when Dobson shot Kaylee. He'd watched her as she held vigil over Kaylee, and appreciated her taking the time to speak to him, instead of about him, like the rest of the crew.

"Of course. I often find that insomnia is best combatted by unburdening what's been on one's mind. Is there something you're worried about, Simon?"

"Besides the usual, you mean?" At her quizzical look, he shook his head. "My sister's brain got scrambled like an egg by the government, we're fugitives with a price on our heads that rivals my father's gross income for one year, and we're stuck on this flying rust bucket with a bunch of Browncoats, a Shepherd, and Jayne."

Inara rose to her feet and went to her tea table, calmly setting about brewing cups of tea for each of them. She carefully strained the hot water through the tea leaves, and placed lumps of sugar on a plate. She passed a china cup to him as she sat down beside him, perfectly at ease though she was sitting on a cold metal floor.

"I don't think there's anything I could say to you that would make any of that go away. They are simply aspects of your life now. Aspects that, however deeply you may wish, you cannot change. What, then, is the solution to an unsolveable problem, Doctor Tam?"

Simon stared at her in confusion. "All problems have a solution. Maybe not an immediately identifiable one, but a solution is there."

"And how does one go about finding it?"

"If I knew that, Inara," he said in irritation, "I wouldn't be keeping you awake at 4 in the morning."

She didn't answer, merely continuing to sip her tea slowly. He drank quickly at first, but slowed down to simply sip with her in silence. He drained the cup, and she reached over to gently take it from him, setting it on the table. Her black hair curled over her shoulders and whipped about her face as she turned back to him.

"Perhaps, then, all one needs is time to sleep on it. The tea was chamomile and fennel, which should take care of your insomnia. And as for that unsolveable problem of yours - let it go for another day." Thanking her with a formal bow as she escorted him to the door of the shuttle, he stopped as she addressed him. "Oh, and Simon? Despite what Mal would have you believe, you and your sister are welcome here any time."

Welcome? On Serenity?

Simon thinks he could get used to that.

~*~*~*~*~

Truth be told, Sargeant Malcolm Reynolds might've just been the first man in the 'verse to actually swallow his own tongue.

Couldn't blame himself, really - wasn't every day you came across a fresh body of water tucked into the trees behind your lines. After weeks of the blood and dirt of the trenches, he'd stripped down without thinking and dove right into the river. Since he'd come up for air and had neither choked on poison nor been shot by purplebellies, he assumed he was alone.

"Assuming" always had made an ass out of him.

Because not three feet away, back turned to him (and really, that was the only reason he wasn't dead), was his second-in-command: Corporal Zoe Alleyne.

He thanked God and every angel he could think of that the water was waist-deep as he felt himself harden painfully, biting his bottom lip at the gasp that threatened to escape. Water spilled a trail from Zoe's hair (oh, Lord, she'd pulled it up, displaying the smooth expanse of neck that he'd spent a good deal of time getting distracted by in the trenches) down that perfect back to meet the river right at the small of her back.

His hands curled into fists at his side as he willed himself in vain to calm. Thought he might have managed it if he could slip into the shadows of the trees at the water's edge, until she spoke up, back still turned.

"Gonna just stand there, sir?"

Never let it be said that Mal Reynolds ever declined the invitation of a lady.

He padded silently through the water, sliding his arms around her from behind. Her skin was warmed from the sun, and she shivered delicately as his water-slick hand came to rest just below one breast. She turned her head up to him and drew breath - about to make another teasing request - but it came out a moan into his mouth. His hand slid up to cup her breast, thumb sweeping and circling over one pebbled nipple. She swallowed his groans as her ass pressed against him, breaking the kiss to throw back her head in abandon.

He was on fire, blessedly cool water the only thing saving him. His mouth growled nonsense into her skin, kissing and licking and biting as he methodically trial-and-errored his way into knowing what she liked. Zoe hadn't left him be to figure it out, either - placing her hand over his and showing him by touch the precise way to drive her insane. Once he'd taken over the rhythm, index finger sliding and circling her sex, she'd turned around and hoisted herself up to lock impossibly long legs around his waist.

He froze as she slid her mouth up his neck and panted hotly in his ear. "Mal, please."

"Please, what?", he answered.

"Take me."

Well, you didn't have to tell him twice - just slid hands around to cradle her thighs and ass, and slid inside her. And oh, he was going to die. She was tight around him - it had been months since anyone had time to sleep at night, let alone rut - and her nails dug sharply into his shoulders. He couldn't move, but that didn't matter to Zoe, who began to mercilessly writhe against him, coaxing him into the rhythm they needed. And when he finally came - hoarse yell stifled against the mass of her hair - all he could hear and feel was her low voice in his ear and her heart beating against his. She smoothed back his hair out of his eyes, and kissed him softly.

Then she left, and he didn't need to ask why, because there was still a war to be fought. Warriors for him to command and her to fight beside. And it wasn't as if they were going to make it out of here alive.

Serenity Valley would claim them both, one way or another.

~*~*~*~*~

*Takes place circa November 2004, after Sabu's back injury, but before Rob blew out his knee.

"Asshole!"

Sabu looked up from the television. Rob had just blown in like a hurricane, in full-blown tantrum mode, throwing his bags to the floor and unsnapping his jacket viciously before tossing it into a heap on the carpet.

"I hope you're not referring to me."

Rob finally looked over at him. "What? No, of course not. Fucking Vince won't give me off to be at the benefit."

Of course he's not giving you off, you idiot, Sabu wanted to say. Rob should have known that his possessive-as-hell boss wasn't going to bend the "no outside bookings" rule just for him. Sure, the benefit wasn't affiliated with any one promotion, but D'Amore and Levy were booking it, and they were TNA guys. Vince allow his precious "Superstars" to work for Jarrett's people? Never gonna happen.

He settled for pulling Rob down onto the couch beside him - his best friend had been pacing, which kinda wore on his neck after a while, not to mention tweaked Sabu's already-painful leg if he shifted wrong.

"I told you he'd say no. Least you guys were taping in Detroit tonight - I'd hate to inflict you on some unsuspecting motorist when you're in a snit."

Rob shifted to sit cross-legged, glaring at him in surprise. "You don't think I have a right to be in a 'snit', as you call it?"

"No, I don't," he answered.

"Why not?"

Shit. Rob was in one of those moods, where he'd take out every little slight on whoever was within range. Yippee - it looked to be Sabu's turn.

Oh, hell with being cautious. What was Rob gonna do - break Sabu's neck a third time?

"Because you have a nice, cushy job, Robbie. If you get hurt, you have a benefits package that pays for it. Must be nice to sell your soul to Vince."

Fuckin' Jeff. Sabu liked the guy, he really did, but there were some things that you just had to admit Vince was doing right. Jeff wouldn't give his talent full hospital pay because he thought paying them their regular salary during their injury was enough. If you were main-eventing, sure. But most of the boys made their money off cuts of the gate; couldn't get that if you weren't there. And his regular salary just wasn't enough to cover both the surgery and the operation.

"Look, I'm sorry," Rob yelled, throwing out his arms. "I'm sorry for selling out for guaranteed medical coverage. I'm sorry for selling out for per-show rising incentives."

"I never blamed you, idiot!"

"Sure sounds like it."

Sabu rolled his eyes. "Did I tell you not to, back in '01? Not that you gave me a chance. You broke your knee, forfeited the TV title, and as soon as you got better, you signed on Vince's dotted line."

"Oh, excuse me for wanting a boss who's never declared bankruptcy and a locker room who doesn't try to kill me."

Sabu leveled a flat stare at him. "Tazz hasn't tried to kill you? What kind of joy juice has he been hitting?"

"Michael Cole."

He tried. He really tried not to laugh, but couldn't help it. The image was too perfect - that ill-tempered troll chasing the squeaky little announcer all over an arena, bellowing babytalk at him. At least Joey had the balls to clock anyone who took his slight frame and suits for weakness and tried something. Sabu turned his head to the side, trying to hide the growing smile and laugh, but it came out anyway. And then he couldn't stop - low snickers turning into that signature "heh, heh" Rob constantly teased him about.

And speaking of Rob, he'd started laughing as well (and where the hell that loud bray came from, Sabu had never figured out), sliding down the couch to lay his head on Sabu's non-injured leg. He was still shaking with laughter when Sabu's fingers started to absentmindedly trail through his loose ponytail. Rob had always had such fucking girly hair; soft and wavy like a woman's. He used conditioner and mousse, and everyone in the locker room knew it. Only reason no one had given him grief for it was that Rob could kick anyone under eight feet tall right in the mouth.

"I'm still coming to the show, you know," Rob said, only the slightest bit of whine in his voice, and Sabu had to smile.

"Yeah, I know."

"See You at the Bitter End" - A Saul/Ellen Mix

2007-09-08T04:48:13Z

Theme 005 - Saul/Ellen - See You at the Bitter End

Made for Theme 005 over at fanmix, which was one character's mixtape to another. Since my brain's been eaten by BSG recently, and it's sort of difficult for them to have mixtapes, this is my attempt at that. Forgive the possible canon twisting and taking liberties with characterization.

So this is my mix for the Tighs, taking them from pre-series to "Crossroads, Part Two". Spoilers for all major plot points from the mini to the end of S3.

~*~*~*~

Saul finds the recording on the floor, fallen between his (their) bed and the dresser. He'd never have known it was there if he weren't crazy enough to chase the music in the ship and sober enough to know the laugh he hears is only in his head.

Hasn't heard it in a while - it's been months since New Caprica and she only laughs at him when he's sober. When ambrosia's just a memory of her tongue slick and hot against his, and the last bottle of whiskey is safely stowed in Bill's quarters where he knows they won't touch it. He'd say he likes the feeling of sobriety, but if it means hearing that laugh, smelling her perfume - he'll stick to drinking, thanks.

And really, if the day you find out you're a toaster isn't an occasion to drink, Saul doesn't know what the frak is.

So he cracks open the jug of hooch - nice to see the deck crew's still is as active as ever - and picks up the tape from the desk. He doesn't know what makes him dig out that old player Chief built out of spare parts, but he switches the tape on before his sense gets the better of him.

Her voice is the first thing he hears, and it hits him like one of Bill's left hooks.

"Took you long enough to find this, Saul. That is, I assume it's been ages since - since New Caprica - and you've just now gotten drunk enough to go through my things."

Woman would laugh herself sick if she knew he was mostly-sober.

"I made this for you for, oh, gods, so many reasons. So you'd have some happy memories of me instead of all the baggage I left you with. So you'd finally hear some decent music that's not those pub songs from Aerelon you sing when you're toasted."

He has good memories involving her, quite a few pints of good Aerelon beer, the alley behind the Blue Horizon, and those aforementioned "pub songs". And he doesn't recall her complaining then.

"And mostly, my love, so you remember that I did - and still do - love you."

His chest aches, and he wonders if the pain is real or just a glitch in his programming. Software doesn't hurt, right? Sure, the toasters bleed well enough - Boomer and Sharon and that blonde bitch down in the cell - and they make pain noises, but it's because humans told them they should. The feelings aren't there, are they?

"I won't ask you to listen any further. I've told you what I needed to tell you, and hopefully, you're still listening. But if you do keep this on . . . thank you."

Her voice fades - it always does - and he doesn't switch off the player.

~*~*~*~*~

I. Down to Nowhere - Thea Gilmore

(Yeah, I am going down to nowhere, it's steeped in history/This is high-rise living for a joke like me . . .)

You know me, Saul - small-town living just couldn't hold me. I was meant for better things, and so were you.

II. Dolly Dagger - Jimi Hendrix

(She's got a bullwhip just as long as your life/Her tongue can even scratch the soul of the Devil's wife . . .)

My mother didn't raise me to be a meek little girl, and really - would you have wanted me if I was?

III. Drought - Vienna Teng

(Summer, move forward and leave your heat anchored in dust/Forgotten him, cheated him, painted illusions of lust . . .)

We were never ones for hearts and flowers. I would never be tied down, and Bill captured your loyalty long before I ever came along.

IV. Evening on the Ground" - Iron & Wine

(Garden born of Eden, and the spider bites on all your lovers/We were, we were born to fuck each other one way or another . . .)

It was the worst in the months before the attacks. We've always fought - oh, and how - but the fighting wasn't fun, or easy. It got vicious.

V. A Thousand Kisses Deep - Leonard Cohen

(I'm turning tricks, I'm getting fixed, I'm back on Boogie Street/You lose your grip and then you slip into the masterpiece . . .)

Getting my interest was easy, sweetheart. Watching you learn how to keep it was the tough part.

VI. Piece of My Heart - Janis Joplin

(Didn't I make you feel like you were the only man?/Yeah, and didn't I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can?)

You won't believe me, but you were my first. No, not in that way. You were the first man I ever loved enough to want to come back to.

VII. Devil Do - Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs

(You got me drunk on whiskey, drunk on wine/Lord don't like it, but the Devil don't mind/Ain't nobody gonna love you like the Devil do . . .)

To us, Saul - two frakked-up alcoholics who couldn't leave each other if we tried.

VIII. Wild Waste and Welter - Jeffrey Foucault

(Honey leave the lights down, there’s killers on the road/Going door to door with lamp-black eyes and the number on your soul . . .)

It got scary as hell on that planet. When the Cylons came, and you and your resistance had to get as heartless as they were.

IX. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer

(I'll make the most of all the sadness/You'll be a bitch because you can/You'll try to hit me just to hurt me so you'll leave me feeling dirty/Cause you can't understand . . .)

It was only a matter of time. I knew when they gave you back that one of us wasn't going to make it, and it wasn't going to be you. You gave them your pound of flesh. I hadn't given them enough.

X. The Bitter End - Placebo

(We're running out of alibis from the second of May/Reminds me of the summertime on this winter's day/See you at the bitter end . . .)

It was a good death, my love. It had honor, and neither the Cylons nor those resistance boys would have given me that. I don't know how many more times I should have to tell you that before you believe me.

~*~*~*~*~

As the last song ends, he reaches over and presses the rewind button. The sharp drumbeats and synth rhythms fill his cabin, and - thank the gods - sound nothing like that other music.

And really - it's nice to hear music that's not just in his head.

*Final track is "All Along the Watchtower", by BT4, which played over the final scenes in "Crossroads, Part Two" and contains the dialogue from the show.

Let me know if you're downloading, thanks.

FIC: Instruments of Vice (BSG, Bill/Kara)

2007-07-23T07:20:52Z

Title: Instruments of Vice
Author: Drea and Carla (bluerosefairy and carla_scribbles)
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Pairing: Bill Adama/Kara Thrace.
Rating: NC-17, MA, whatever you want to call it. It's not for the kids.
Written for: The dooooooom-a-thon.
Chosen Taboos: May/December pairing, dominance/submission, banging the boss, power games, masturbation, voyeurism.
Prompt: "And maybe I'm not up for being a victim of love, when all my resistance will never be distance enough."
Disclaimer: Once upon a time, Ron Moore and David Eick recreated a sucktastic 70's scifi show and made it BEYOND awesome. We’re not them. Then they cast Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff as two of their leads. We’re not them, either. We own nothing except the plot of this story, and a couple sets of DVDs. Please to not sue.
Spoilers: Takes place directly after the events of Part One of the miniseries, when Bill and Kara believe Lee has died, so chronologically, just the miniseries. But knowing the plot of "Act of Contrition" is definitely recommended.
Quotes: Summary and title taken from Act 5, Scene 3 of King Lear.
Author's Notes: We’d both like to thank the lovely petronelle, for kicking our sentences in the ass, helping us fix the entire second half, and generally being the best beta EVER. Sorry we kind of broke you by forcing you to beta Kara/Adama porn. It must have been unbearable. Um - oops?

~*~*~*~

When the world ends, all the rules you think you're able to follow suddenly, you come to understand, mean absolutely nothing.

Bill learns this - as he has learned everything worth knowing - the hard way.

~*~*~*~

"Tell me what you want, sir. Make this okay."

She's on her knees for him. And the first thing he thinks, the only thing he can think for that first long minute between seeing her and being able to speak, is no. He does not want her. He does not want any more of Kara Thrace's soul than he already owns. He cannot give in to the pulse of his blood and that voice in the back of his head telling him to take what she offers.

He's pretty sure she doesn't know what she's offering, and that she'd never even be here in his quarters this late at night if the Cylons hadn't come back. She wants someone to chase away her nightmares, tell her that it's going to be okay. He knows - and she knows - that it isn't, that everything is different now, except for them.

But now the Commander and the Lieutenant of the Galactica have faded into Bill and Kara and gods, why can't it ever be easy with her? She's looking up at him, still, her gaze steady and a little defiant, and no one should have the right to see her like this. He should tell her to get up and go to her quarters; he should, but his voice won't come, and all he can hear is her.

It's okay, I want this. I need you to tell me what to do.

And for a second, she breaks. She glances away at the door - he can see her starting to draw back in on herself - and gets to her feet. She’ll leave, they’ll never speak of this again, and that's what forces his hand. "Kara," he says, and she turns back to him; her eyes are wide, startled, half anticipation and half fear, and it all but breaks his heart. "Come here."

The set of her shoulders tenses, bicep muscles flexing, and those wide, wide eyes finally focus in on him. She takes a half-step toward him, stops, but can't disobey the order. Too long, too many "yes, sir's" between them, and he doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed as she stops in front of him again. He reaches out, gently takes her chin in his hand, and represses the shudder of satisfaction as she turns catlike into his touch. He can do this to her, make her forget, make her feel again. His thumb traces the barest edge of her lower lip and her breath puffs out shakily against his skin.

Soft skin under his hand, fever-hot, and her eyelids fall half-closed; she's shaking, and he's only half-sure still it's not fear. "Tell me you're sure," he says, and he's damn thankful he managed to get the entire sentence out; even more so when she laughs, and the relief in that sound is almost like a sob.

"You're not my-" she says, breaks off, and he really doesn't want to know what was at the end of that sentence. "Yeah. I'm sure. Are you?"

And there's nothing to do, then, except lean in and kiss her.

This, at least, is somewhat familiar - he's done this before, after Zak's funeral. A searing, furtive kiss she stole between swigs of booze back in his hotel room, before he pressed his fingers to her lips and let her cry and scream out her grief. He swore at the time he wasn't enjoying her body pressed tightly to his, breath hot and sticky on his neck and the soft skin of her back warm under his fingers, but he'd never been able to stop the itch to feel her again. She is still his dead son's fiancée and times like these, he doesn't care that Zak had her first. Just wants to watch her burn in her own flame, rushing headlong into death and coming back to him far too alive.

She clings to him now with that same desperation, bitten-off nails sinking into his back through his tanks and mouth slick and hungry on his. Her lips are soft, softer than he remembers, and her mouth just opens up under his. She presses against him, and her arm snakes around his neck; she's half-laughing when they break for air, and he is as well -- adrenaline, nerves, the way you laugh when you realize you're not dead.

The way she laughs every time she steps out of her Viper.

"Oh yeah?" she says, and she's brighter than he's ever seen her. He still feels like he might break if he looks too closely.

It doesn't stop him.

~*~*~*~

"So that's a yes, right? Sir?"

"I don't think you need to ask," he says, forcing his voice steadier than he feels. Kara's eyes widen, just for a second, and even if she hadn't already told him, shown him - that would have been everything he needed to know. "But you asked me earlier," he says, and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to let go of her, "to tell you what I want. I want you, Kara."

A soft gasp catches in the back of her throat, and her nails bite into his back through the tanks as she holds him tight. Like he's actually going anywhere. Like it's still in his hands.

"Why?"

Another thing she should never have to ask, but he knows why she does. Too many nameless, faceless women out there - older than her, saner than her - why would he choose her? Why now and not two years ago, when they could have written it off to grief and too much alcohol? Why, after the end of the world, when Lee went and died on them just like Zak? Why, when he should be thinking of her as a daughter but in actuality, has never tried?

Rather than articulate this to her, he pushes her backwards until her back hits his desk and she's pinned between it and his body. His fingers tangle in her hair and pull her head sideways to let him kiss and bite at her neck. He slides his mouth up to her ear, trailing his tongue over the shell and gods, she needs to make that sound more often. That needy, high-pitched whine that might be his name, but he's never heard it from her lips before.

And she's clinging to him still - her nails snag against the fabric of his tanks - as she rocks up against him with every inch of leverage she can get. He lets his mouth trail down to suck at a spot just behind her ear, and she gasps; he can feel her squirming, trying to find a better angle, get herself braced and her legs apart, and for a second he thinks of letting her. He half-thinks he'd like that: lift her up, pull her uniform trousers down, run his fingers across that skin, hot and fast the way he hasn't thought of wanting it in years.

But this isn't about that, not some drunken grope in the bunk room, fast and messy and both your pants zipped before anyone else gets back; this is Kara, and he can go slow. Forces himself to, kissing his way back down to her shoulder until he has to push the straps of her tanks aside to get at her skin - and slow or not, those are going to have to come off.

She's faster than he is, though, and has both tanks over her head and on the floor before he's even tried to slide his hands under them. And all that's left is skin - miles of hot, bare skin that he just has to taste; salty at the bend of her elbow, sweeter near her shoulders and collarbone, hot and musky on her neck. She gasps, hands lacing though his hair and urging him lower. He could take his time, linger around her breasts, discover through mouth and hands the particulars of making her scream or gasp or moan, but no - he knows what she likes and how she likes it.

She's an adrenaline junkie, and, at this particular point, she likes it rough. And it can't hurt to give her what she wants, this one time; pulling her hips into him, letting her legs wrap around his waist. He’ll admit to enjoying the broken cry she gives when she finally grinds herself against his cock like she's been wanting to for what seems like hours. He slides an arm around her back, lowering his head to graze her nipple with teeth and blunt fingers, and she pushes right back, begging for more.

"Gonna frak me, sir, or just play around?"

And he's never going to let her know what that does to him - not out loud, anyway. How he'll never hear her call him "sir" again without hearing it just like that, that break in her voice she's trying desperately to hide.

"That would depend." His fingers brush the inside of her leg, and she huffs out a frustrated little laugh. "You want me to frak you, Lieutenant?"

He can feel the shiver run through her, and her voice is soft and too-fast: "Oh, what, you want me to say please?" She rolls her hips against him, slow, and bites her lip; they're both in this over their heads. "I can - ah - I can say that. Sir."

Gods, she's doing it deliberately now, knowing how much it turns him on to hear that. His hand skirts the curve of her hip, fingers sliding under the waistband of her sweatpants, and she arches into the touch. Shameless, pushing towards him, trying to shift his hand closer to where she wants it, and she keens high and needy when he pulls back to go for the lace to her pants. He slides them down her hips, slow, trying not to let his hands shake too badly - trying and mostly failing, if the way she grins at him is anything to go by. Her pants fall into a pile next to their tanks, and he stops her legs from wrapping around him again. She groans in frustration, and he doesn't budge, not until her eyes meet his.

"Say it."

Her legs flex under his hands, all coiled strength from flying Vipers and he can't deny that doesn't affect him. Another time, he'd let her lock her ankles around his back and grip him mercilessly, but it's his game tonight. Whatever happens will be on his say-so.

"Look at me, Kara, and say it."

And she doesn't look away - she's clinging to the edge of the desk, her lip still caught between her teeth, but her eyes stay locked on his. Wide and hunted and gods, Kara. He almost wants to tell her to stop, it's all right, he doesn't need her to.

That'd be a lie, though, and it wouldn't do them any good to pretend.

"Please," she says, tense and so low he's not sure he should be able to hear her. "Please, I need-"

She bites down hard on the last word, whines and pushes up against his hands, and that's it, he couldn't ignore that if he had to.

~*~*~*~

He kisses her roughly, matching every bite and lick of her tongue as he relaxes his grip on her legs. She bucks hard against him, whimpering and grinding herself into his cock, and she's wet enough that he can feel her heat through even his uniform and her panties.

He breaks away from her mouth to run a hand down her back and rasp out, "Shh, I've got you."

A shudder goes through her, and she nods feverishly as she takes his hand, lacing her fingers with his, and slides them both under the waistband of her panties. Guides his fingers to her sex and moans brokenly as he picks up her rhythm, tight circles on her clit, shallow swipes against her labia and gods, he's not going to last long if she keeps this up. She leans in and kisses him again, biting at his lower lip; their hands trapped between them. They've got the worst angle for this, but he can still find a spot just there to the side of her clit that makes her whimper against his mouth when he strokes it. Does it again, slower; her hand tightens over his, and her hips lift into his palm, and he can't think of anything he wants more now than to watch her spin out of control.

"Let me," he whispers, and she nods, licks her lips; her hand pulls back to grab his wrist, and she's wet enough that he can slide a finger and then two inside her with no resistance at all. Tight and hot around his fingers, and she's shaking, but she leans back and smiles at him.

"Please?"

And that does it. He wants to watch her fall apart under his hands, wants to be the one to make Kara Thrace scream and beg for release, and she's asking him for it. Her hips rise and she cries out softly as he slides his fingers out of her. She makes a desperate grab for his hand, but he shakes his head, touching slick fingers to her mouth and shuddering as she takes them in.

She licks and sucks her wetness from his fingers, and gods, as long as he lives, he's never going to get that visual out of his head. Has to pull his hand away and taste her wetness on her mouth - hot and bittersweet. He can't pull away from this clash of lips and tongues and teeth to breathe, though, because it's Kara, and he's starting to crave the taste of her like nothing else he's ever experienced.

Kara's mouth is hard against his, demanding; she's too keyed up now to be anything like deliberate, and he doesn't think he's ever seen her like this. Heard a bit of it, maybe, in the way she laughs sometimes when she's flying - that wildness, the jagged edge to her breathing - but nothing like this. And he wants it, wants all of her he can get, her nails scratching at his shoulders and her mouth on his, her skin hot under his hands.

More than he could possibly know what to do with.

He's barely touching her, now, one hand at the small of her back and the other cradling her face, and she bites at his lip before she pulls away. "Sir," she says, and her voice cracks, and he almost can't breathe. "Do you want to frak me? Sir? Or should I just-" Her hand, sliding down between them, one finger curling in to stroke at the side of her clit. "Take care of it myself?"

He's not going to lie - his eyes roll back a little at that particular suggestion - and she doesn't miss it. Her grin widens, and she slides the grey cotton down her legs, kicking the panties to the floor. Eases back further on the desk - gods, he's never going to be able to sit at this desk again, is he? - and spreads her legs wide, letting him see her wet and bare. Her eyes lock onto his as she sinks two fingers into herself, letting loose a cry as she fraks herself sharp and fast, hips rolling and snapping in a hypnotic rhythm.

And as quiet as he's been for most of this encounter, he can't stop talking now, every moan and gasp from her spurring him on.

"Come on, Kara, let me hear you - that's it, baby, eyes on me, keep your eyes on me until you come. Let me see it, beautiful. Let me see you come."

Kara gasps as sharply as if he'd struck her, and for a moment he's sure he's gone too far. Hurt her, betrayed her trust, broken whatever this is between them - but she doesn't look away. Because it's true, he's hit her where it hurts.

It's an order, and she doesn't disobey his orders.

She moans, spreads her legs wider still, pulls her fingers back - wet, and he wants to suck them clean, wants to drop to his knees and lick her until she screams -- and adds a third one on the next stroke. She can't keep from shuddering as she keeps her eyes on his, and he can't help but admit that it hadn't been so much an order as a plea.

Stay with me, Kara. You are here and I am here, and we are doing this because it's the only thing that we haven't lost.

~*~*~*~

His breath is coming as shallowly as hers now, his hands splayed white-knuckled against his desk. Her head snaps back, choking as if she'd been drowning, and her thumb circles hard and tight against her clit. She's caught up in it now, shaking with the rhythm of it, making small urgent noises in her throat. Her free hand tightens convulsively on the edge of the desk, and her eyes flutter closed before she forces them open, still locked on his.

Kara doesn't flinch when her climax hits her, sharp and sudden. His arms come up to catch her as she arches forward off the desk. She’s burning up, still shaky in the aftermath, and for a minute, she’s content to let herself be held. He strokes her back as she curls against him and her breathing evens out - until her eyes open and she pulls away, face still flushed.

She grins at him, crooked and softer than usual and clearly an effort, but very real for all of that. "Just. Wow." The smile sharpens. "Sir."

"You're going to have to stop calling me that," and he can hear the roughness in his own voice. "I won't be able to hear it from you in public. Won't be able to look at you as it is - I don't need to add in not being able to hear you either."

She laughs, and goes quiet for a second, watching him, and his hands ache to pull her against him; she smells of sex and clean sweat, and it's driving him half-insane. "I like the way you look at me," she says, finally, swinging herself down off the desk.

Her body fits flush against his, and she's kissing him and snaking a hand down to unzip his pants. "And I think we should take this to a bed, don't you?"

He wishes he could truthfully say he could have held her forever like that, but his cock has been pulsing insistently against the seam of his pants for the past twenty minutes, and gods, he's going to go insane if he doesn't frak her now.

"Yeah," he says, not unshakily. "We should."

And he somehow manages to get over to his rack and out of his clothes without either tripping or making a complete idiot of himself. It’s a near-miss, though, when he tangles his left leg in his pants, and Kara’s not helping. She barely lets him get his boxers off before she's on him again, sliding her hands up his hips to rake softly down his chest, pulling him down next to her and pressing tightly to him.

For a moment, it's almost too much - he has to shut his eyes and bury his face in her neck and breathe, try to block out the heat of her against him, her hands mapping out his skin. Her leg hooked awkwardly around his; he shifts, and she moves along with him, and then her legs are around his waist and his cock is at the entrance to her, and he's forgetting even how to breathe. It's like going back in time, he thinks, and Kara's hands tighten into fists against his back as he slides into her

She shivers, and he kisses her; forehead, cheek, corner of her mouth. She licks her dry lips and turns her head to meet his mouth, teeth nipping at his lower lip. She’s hot around him, under him, her hands gripping tight to his back. He’s being a gentleman, he thinks, giving her some time to adjust, but she lets out a needy whine and runs her nails down his back as she rolls her hips against him.

"C'mon, sir", she grits out, flashing a grin when he shudders at that word again, "I won't break. Not even for you."

It’s a challenge, more than anything, and oh, does it hit him right between the eyes. There’s nothing he’s ever been able to deny her, and he can’t bring himself to call her bluff.

He pants his reply onto her skin, breathes it into the bare stretch of neck and collarbone - “Don’t need you to break, Kara. Just need you to come with me.”

“So make me”, she says, snapping her hips harder and harder against him, pulling him into her and pulling away just as fast.

Because this is what she likes, this is what she can take, and she's all but begging for it, and he can't - he can't do anything short of give it to her, as deep and as rough as he can make himself be with her. Frak her while her keens turn to gasps and then to broken noises that he thinks are halfway to laughter. She snaps her hips up to meet him on every stroke, straining against him, and her face, gods, her face is wide open, lips parted and eyes so wide he can't help but wonder what she sees. She's hot around him, tight, and her knees dig into his sides, and he's hissing nonsense into her skin - frak, Kara, mine, so good, please.

He's never, in all of his varied fantasies about her, thought of them in this way - frakking her face to face, deep as he can go, while she cries out again and again. And now that he's lived it, he knows he just might kill to do it again. She's close to coming again - he can feel her fingers flexing around his, mimicking her muscles around his cock - and her eyes have gone frantic as she shudders underneath him.

He pulls back as far as he can stand to and holds still for a second: loves the pull of her body against his, the way she hisses and swears before he slams into her again. She shouts and bites down on his shoulder, hard enough that he'll be walking around with her mark on him, and her legs tighten around him; he can feel her shaking on the edge, and he half-wants to keep her there forever even as he knows how beautiful she'll be when she comes.

"Tell me how much you want it," he breathes, and she gasps, her mouth opening and closing as she tries to find the words.

"Yeah," and she bites her lip, "frak, please, just - oh gods, like that. Just like that."

It doesn't take much to push Kara over; a few deep strokes and she's wailing thin and high, her back arching as far as she can off the bed. Even though he tries to stroke her through it as she comes down - gods, he's so close himself he's shaking with the strain - she catches his hands in hers and reaches blindly for his mouth. In between heavy breaths, she licks across his bottom lip and breathes out "now, now, please now".

He's lost all sense of rhythm - she's still wide open under him, taking it - and her eyes suddenly light up in a wicked grin as she digs her nails into his back and arches up sharp against him.

"Give it up, sir."

Her turn to give the orders, then?

And he's gone then; driving against her, into her, so far out he's seeing black behind his eyes. Frakking her while she purrs and urges him on, her nails tracing patterns on his shoulders. She gasps once, high and trembling, with a sharp noise buried in it that could almost be his name, and the sound goes through him like a knife. Lays him open as he comes, breathing hard and crooning her name under his breath.

Kara, Kara, Kara, and he can say for sure now that he's lost.

~*~*~*~

He never wants to move, but she's sticky and restless under him, so he shifts onto his side, and doesn't say anything as she burrows against him.

She’s flying CAP in five hours. He can let her sleep until then.

Any and all feedback whatsoever will be squeed-over for days and printed out to hang on our respective fridges. Because we'd just like to know we're not completely insane for writing this.

Get your fat, lazy ass out of that rack, Roslin . . .

2007-07-12T21:09:53Z

Argh. WRITING HARD. So I stole this progress-tracking from my co-author carla_scribbles, so maybe it'll kick my ass into doing some actual work.

Title: "Right Where It's Severed"
Fandom: BSG
Known Unofficially As: Saul/Kara Knife!porn, co-written with Carla.
Number of words committed: 130 (on my part).
Reason for stopping: Collectively brain-dead.
Favorite line: "Doesn't talk, just moves his hand slow enough to let her stop him easily, if she wanted to. Only if she wanted to." (Mine) AND "For having a deadly weapon pressed against her stomach, and she knows just exactly how sharp it is, and she's remembering the noise Leoben made when-" (Carla's).
Surprises, pleasant and un-: Carla bringing up Leoben in her section.
Character I least want to get within fifty feet of right now: Kara. Honey, step AWAY from the psychopathic XO who's got a knife to your stomach. Haven't you figured out that you SHOULD NOT FRAK with Saul Tigh? Ever?
Mean things committed: Well, nothing terrible - yet. I still haven't figured out how Kara reacts to Saul's upping the ante.
~~iTunes~~ WMP reads my mind: Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box

Title: "Miles from the Lightning"
Fandom: Artemis Fowl
Known Unofficially As: A piddling attempt at Dom/Juliet/Artemis.
Number of words committed: 643
Reason for stopping: Acute plot disjointment, lack of solid POV, no fucking clue where exactly during TEC the thing is set.
Favorite line: Not so much "favorite" as "actually halfway coherant" - "So she ran back to Ireland, back to the fairies and the Fowls, who had taken fifteen years from Dom in exchange for another in Artemis's endless line of insane schemes."
Surprises, pleasant and un-: Juliet sneaking away from Madame Ko's at night to call Dom. I wasn't sure I wanted to have her so stereotypically dependent on Dom, but who else is going to understand the training she's going through?
Character I least want to get within fifty feet of right now: Artemis. I can deal with Juliet's severe pissyness at Artemis and her grief for Dom. I can deal with Dom's protectiveness toward both of them, as well as his extreme hesitation toward anything going down. But ACK. Am just now getting how very manipulative Arty is, and dammit, are the Butler sibs going to be pissed at him.
Mean things committed: I didn't do it, but killing off Dom and bringing him back to life is all Eoin Colfer. I just want to use it for my own porny means.
~~iTunes~~ WMP reads my mind: A Perfect Circle - When the Levee Breaks.

. . . nope. Just more time-wasting. Dammit, I need to get my mojo back. And stop panicking about the beta for the dooooooom-a-thon.

FIC: Lullaby (BSG, gen)

2007-06-06T07:22:24Z

Title: Lullaby
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy)
Rating: PG-13, for disturbing content and language.
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica
Characters/Pairing: Laura Roslin, OFC. Background Laura Roslin/Richard Adar.
Disclaimer: Once upon a time, Ron Moore and David Eick recreated a sucktastic 70's scifi show and made it BEYOND awesome. I'm not them. Then they cast Mary McDonnell as one of their leads. I'm not her, either. Diane, Cass, Matt, and Jamie Adar are probably the only things in this I own. Title and quoted lyrics from Vienna Teng’s Lullaby for a Stormy Night. And if you can spot the other sci-fi show reference, you get a cookie.
Spoilers: The miniseries, for the entire premise of the show, and “Epiphanies”, for Richard and Laura’s affair.
Author's Notes: Written for the loveforthefolks Mother’s Day challenge, for the prompt “Laura Roslin”. To carla_scribbles, for letting me talk her into writing Socrata Thrace for said challenge, wresting my “ooh shiny“ impulses into a coherent story, and indulging my every insane pairing whim with very little freaking out. When I grow up, I want to write Lauravoice like hers.
Summary: A girl and a boy at the end of the world.

~*~*~*~

The Present Day - during the Cylon attacks

“Cass? What‘s happening?”

What’s happening? The world is ending - that‘s what‘s happening. There are mushroom clouds off in the distance in every direction, and the fires are spreading through the streets. And none of that is really going to register with my baby brother.

“The Cylons attacked. They broke the ceasefire.”

Nuclear warfare, Dad would call it. Call it by its name, Cassie, because that’s what Dad would have wanted. He’s dead, he has to be - the Case Orange went out, asking any government official to answer - and Mom and Matt are probably dead, too. Delphi High is right in the middle of Caprica City, and it would have been hit first, along with the Quorum Hall and the Senate buildings.

So it’s just me and Jamie left. A college student - freshman sociology major at Athenaeum - and her 10 year old brother, holed up in our house in the hills above Caprica City. Who’d have thought the day would come when I appreciated living in the Hills?

“ . . . oh. Is Daddy dead?”

“I think so.”

“What about Mommy? And Matt?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He crawls into my lap, huddling with me in the dark. We’re under the table in the basement, just like Dad and the bodyguards taught us. If the Cylons land and get past security, they’re going to have to break through a triple-sheet metal door and look really hard to find us.

“Cassie? Will they hear us if you sing to me?”

I don’t know. They’ll probably find us no matter how quiet we are, but Jamie doesn‘t need to know that. “No, sweetie. They won’t hear us.”

“Sing me the song Mommy sings me during thunderstorms.”

I have no memories of my mother singing to us. I don’t think she ever has. And please read my severe irritation at that, because my mother and I have never had the best of relationships. She was beautiful, certainly, and the model First Lady, even before Dad became President. She never left my brothers and I with nannies or caregivers if she could help it, and she was always very involved with our schools. Even made president of the PTA one year, before she gave it up for her gardening club.

Everyone loved her, even my friends. They’d always ask me: Cass, what’s your problem with your mom? She’s gorgeous and smart and doesn’t embarrass you.

They would even ask me in front of her, or while the press were around, and what the frak am I supposed to say? So I lie, say it’s just stupid little stuff and that it doesn‘t mean I don‘t love her. Oh, Gods, I said it in public once and Mom’s publicist was doing handstands of joy - Cass Adar, finally having something printable to say about Mrs. Diane Valen Adar.

And if you think my father had anything to say about Mom‘s childrearing skills, well - you don’t know Richard Adar.

I love my father. I can unequivocally say that I do love my father. He’s brilliant, talented, and caring . . . and so, so blind when it comes to women of any age. If I manipulated him the right way, I could get him to name our cat to the Vice Presidency. He has never, in my 17 years of existence, told my mother the word “no”, and I don’t think he would have the slightest clue to go about it.

It’s just me and Jamie left now, and I still don’t-

Oh, Gods. I know what he means. I know the song. No, Mom’s never sung to us.

But someone else has.

~*~*~*~

3 years ago

Debate practice ran for-frakking-ever, so it’s later than usual when I get home, and I run up the walk to our house. I know the security team would rather walk me to the door, but Nick put my lit teacher in a headlock again for implying my parents didn’t impart any good taste to me, so he’s the latest name on my shit list. It’s been a long week, and I’m so glad it’s over. Mom and Dad are out for the night - embassy ball for the visiting delegation from Geminon - and Matt will be at his netball game until 11.

Rain pounding against the windows, I leave my soaked clothes in the washroom and grab one of Matt’s tee-shirts and an old pair of my jeans lying on the mend pile, and walk into the kitchen. And jackpot - Mina, our latest housekeeper, left me dinner, which doesn’t always happen. Sometimes Jamie and whoever’s watching him will eat it all, or forget to save me any, and I have to root through a kitchen that is never organized the same way one day that it was the day before. Hazard of Mom’s ridiculously high staff turnover. She’s forever having to replace the help because she’s scared them off or Matt’s harassed them out the door.

And gods, I think I love Mina. Dinner’s still hot, and I grab the plate of pasta out of the oven and settle on my favorite stool with a glass of juice and a piece of bread from the basket on top of the counter. I’ve gotten in just in time, because the wind is absolutely howling, clattering the porch swing against the railing. The room lights up, and barely any time after it, the thunder crashes overhead. Zeus is having a hell of a tantrum tonight.

Come to think of it - someone else should be having a tantrum as well. It’s past Jamie’s bedtime, but the kid’s scared to death of thunderstorms. He just refuses to sleep during them, sitting up in Dad’s study watching me do homework, or clinging to Mom as she reads or listens to the wireless. Normally, he’d be wailing his head off right now, stuck in a house with just a babysitter during a storm.

I put the plate back on the warmer, and head upstairs for Jamie’s room. The door’s open, and I haven’t heard any screaming. In fact, I’m hearing something completely different, and I lean against the doorframe and listen.

“Little child, be not afraid, the wind makes creatures of our trees . . .”

I know that voice.

It’s Laura, which surprises me. She hasn’t babysat us since the campaign, since Dad made her Secretary of Education and put her in his cabinet. Wow, Mom and Dad must have been desperate for a babysitter if they could agree on her for a change.

And now it’s obvious why Jamie isn’t crying - he adores Laura. If there were anyone in the entire world he’d choose to watch him, it would be her. She endeared herself to him (and Matt and I, for that matter) when she watched us a long time ago during Dad’s first campaign. We were stuck in a hotel room, Matt was in trouble with Mom and Dad for kicking one of the security guys, and Jamie’d been having tantrums ever since we left Caprica City. Laura ignored Jamie’s screaming and started teaching me and Matt how to make crayon soap and let us color on the walls. By the time the soap was finished, Jamie had picked up a green piece and forgotten all about how mad he was.

It wasn’t like Laura was all fun and games - she would pull Matt by the ear whenever he cursed around her, or give me lectures about my schoolwork if my grades were slipping - but she noticed us. Even when Dad became President and she had tons of her own work to do, she would still ask him about us. She would call on our birthdays or slip a card in Dad’s briefcase that had something fun in it. Not usually money - because we hardly needed it - but something she knew we’d like. A sheet of temporary tattoos for me. A set of Pyramid cards for Matt. A joke book for Jamie.

I almost gave Mom a heart attack when I showed up for my 15th birthday dinner at the Palladium with a rose-wrapped-sword on my arm. The press went ballistic. Totally worth getting grounded for two weeks.

Unsurprising, really, that when I was in middle school and my early teens, I used to pretend Laura was our real mom. She paid attention to kids that weren’t hers when my mother thought her obligation to us ended with bake sales and fundraisers. Laura even went with me when I got my nose pierced last year, because I was sixteen and I needed adult supervision. She immediately informed my parents, of course, but she went with me to make sure the place was safe, and held my hand when they stuck the needle through.

She even stayed when Mom and Dad lit into me at home. She told Mom she was overreacting and that it shouldn’t matter what the press thinks of me. And she called Dad an ass for yelling at me. Said she was proud of how I handled the entire thing.

I think I liked that part best of all.

I watch her with Jamie, and smile as I hear Jamie snoring softly in her lap. Another reason Jamie adores Laura is that she pays equal attention to all of us. He doesn’t understand why Mommy pays attention to him, but not me or Matt. He’s still young enough to be adorable, and actually likes the press attention, so he’s not the publicity problems that Matt and I are. He’s a good kid; plays Junior Pyramid and the violin in his school orchestra, and has no trouble in school. He tells hysterical little jokes and can snort milk up his nose at will.

She strokes his hair off his face, and gods, do I wish again that she was my mother, even though I know about her and Dad. I’m not blind, dumb, or stupid. I know my father is having an affair with Laura Roslin, and the only one who bothers to pretend they‘re not is my mother. But it doesn’t matter, because Laura still gives me a hug every time she sees me.

I don’t know if anyone realizes how much that means to me. Mom never really touched us. She held us when Matt and I were younger, and still cuddles Jamie now, but I don’t think I’ve really hugged my mother since I turned fifteen.

“And I hope that you’ll know that nature is so . . .”

Laura finishes the song, easing Jamie off her and under the covers, and turns off the bedside lamp. She was reading him “Hook and Pan”, of course - Jamie refuses to hear anything else before bed - and replaces it in his bookshelves. Gives me a smile as she spots me in the doorway, and holds her finger to her lips as she follows me out and shuts the door.

I can smell her jasmine perfume as she hugs me. It’s not her usual brand, so I assume it’s a present from her students. She still teaches night classes once a week because, as she told Dad, she’d go insane if she didn’t keep teaching.

“How’re you doing, kiddo?,” she asks, brushing fingertips across my newly-cut hair. “I like the haircut.”

I have to stop myself from bursting into tears. Dad had an aneurysm over it, of course; his only daughter chopping her hair off and dying the tips purple. Which was, truth be told, my guiding motivation in doing it - to see how many colors his face would turn this time. Mom had waved her hand at me, told me it was a phase I’d outgrow, and to please keep a hat on if we were going to be in front of the press.

And my father’s mistress is the one smiling at me and supporting me and being more of a mother to me than my own.

It frakking figures, doesn’t it?

I shake my head, not even knowing where to begin. “Nick hit Mr. Kilbride again for talking about Dad and the press got a photo of it, Matt brought home his new girlfriend because Dad’s offplanet, Mom hates her and is taking it out on me, and Jamie‘s started a practical joke war on the security team. And I suck at being captain of the debate team and we‘re gonna lose the mock trial portion of tomorrow‘s match because of me.”

“Oh, boy,” Laura sighs. She inclines her head toward the stairs and pats me on the shoulder. “I can’t help you with anything else, but let’s hit your dad’s tea stash and I’ll help you talk over your case for tomorrow.”

Laura’s cure-all: hibiscus tea with sugar. Sounds like a plan.

~*~*~*~

The Present Day

“Jamie, you know Laura‘s not our mommy,” I say gently. “Mommy doesn’t sing to us.”

He shakes his head resolutely. “Don’t care. Sing to me anyway. And don‘t skip the verses like Laura does.”

What can I do? Can’t blame the kid for wanting someone like Laura for his mother. She’s been around his entire life - he can’t remember a time when we weren’t in the public eye and Dad’s mistress liked his kids better than his wife.

What can I do? The Cylons are going to kill us, whether we run or hide or do nothing. I know my history - I’ve seen the films on TV, how nothing short of a kill shot from a gun can stop them. We don’t keep guns in the house, and even if we did, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to use one. And we can’t risk venturing out to find one of the bodyguards - even if one is still alive.

What else can I do, but comfort my little brother?

“Little child, be not afraid, the rain pounds harsh against the glass . . .”

~*~*~*~

3 Years Ago

“As you have heard here today, ladies and gentlemen of the-”

“Stop.”

My palms fall flat on the table, and I look down at Laura, interrupted yet again. “What is it this time?”

She takes a sip of tea and slides her glasses from where they were perched on the top of her hair back onto her face, regarding me from over the rims in a familiar challenging stare.

“Don’t assume, Cassie. You’re assuming that the jury has been paying attention. They should have been, but we all get bored during jury duty. They could have been doodling or daydreaming or any one of a thousand things besides paying attention to the trial. Remember the three rules of writing and public speaking?”

I do, having had them drilled into me by both her and my father. “Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you just told them.”

“Very good,” she says, “Now try that closing statement one more time.”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have all the facts. Quinn Mallory is a convicted thief. That is a fact. Quinn Mallory was seen by four witnesses entering the scene of the crime-”

Laura holds up a finger. “What crime? You need to be specific in your statement. Make them connect Mallory as a prior thief to Mallory as the perpetrator of this theft.”

“ . . . entering the scene of the burglary on Marsday, the fifteenth of Julius. That is also a fact. The stolen items were found in Quinn Mallory’s apartment by Caprica police three days after the burglary. Another fact. The facts are there, the evidence is there, and the conclusion should be there as well. Quinn Mallory is guilty of the charges brought against him today. Help us bring him to justice.”

Applause echoes from the back door, and Laura and I turn to find Dad standing there, tuxedo collar unfastened and his jacket draped over his arm. Mom’s handing her coat off to one of the staff, gold evening gown sweeping the floor and tasteful jewelry around her neck and wrists.

“Closing arguments, Cassie?“ He throws his jacket over one of the chairs at the table, and drops a kiss on my head before sitting down. “I thought you were going to let someone else do the mock trial while you focused on the Socratic dialogue.”

Laura coughs politely, raising her eyebrow at my father. “Not everyone delegates, Richard. I think Cassie’s doing excellently with the mock trial portion.”

“She’s never going to get into Athenaeum if she doesn’t pass her Dialogue portion, and-”

Oh Gods, here they go again. Dad and Laura fight almost as much as Dad and Mom, and that shouldn’t be possible. Honestly, would it kill my father to not argue with a woman? Any woman?

“And she’s sitting right here, thank you both. Dad, if I pass off the mock trial, it’ll be the third week, and we’re playing Xavier. The captains have to do the mock trial when it’s two teams from the same region. I’ll have the Dialogue next week against Atlantis.”

Mom’s finished re-instructing the staff on the proper hanging of her coat, and interrupts in her usual breezy disapproving manner. “Cassie, you’re not staying at Olivia’s again tomorrow night after the match. I know you girls don’t get to see each other often, but we have dinner at the Islingtons and you’re expected to be there. Dressed appropriately, please, so I don’t have to remind you. Good evening, Laura, thank you for watching Jamie on such short notice. It was Richard‘s week to make sure we had someone.”

Lovely, we’re passing right from “let’s decide Cassie’s future” to Mom and Dad assigning blame for having to have Laura in our house. Gods, it’s not like Mom hasn’t had her own little indiscretions, and at least Laura doesn’t try to wring money out of Dad. He had to sneak a bonus for resolving the union talks into her direct-deposit last year so she wouldn’t turn it down.

“It’s no trouble, Diane. You look as though you had a wonderful night,” Laura says, completely without sarcasm. She’s never risen to my mother’s bait - you have to try a lot harder if you’re going to ruffle her feathers. I’m like her in that way, because Gods know I didn’t get it from my father, who’s glaring a hole through Mom and sneaking furtive looks at Laura like he doesn’t know anyone’s watching him.

Mom makes that uncertain smile she gets when she has no idea where you’re going with a statement. “We did, actually. Hyperion is beautiful this time of year - and the Geminese know their music. Even the flight home was fairly uneventful.”

Everyone can hear the stress on the word ’home’, and Laura takes the offered out. She stands up, stretching tiredly, and everyone ignores Dad’s eyes focused in on the skin she shows as her shirt rides up. She picks up her purse and coat from where the staff have dropped it off on the end table, and kisses Mom’s cheek and hugs Dad.

“Lovely seeing you both. Richard, I’ll see you at the cabinet meeting tomorrow.” She hugs me, brushing a strand of hair out of my face. “Good luck on the match, Cass. Call me and let me know how it went, okay?”

“Okay. Ten-fifteen’s not too late, right?”

Laura smiles. “I’ll only be midway through budget proposals. Talk to you then.”

And she’s gone, brushing past security and snagging her car keys from them rather than let one of them chauffeur her home.

~*~*~*~

The Present Day

The Cylons are coming. I can hear that terrible clomp as the Centurions walk the driveway up to the house, shooting anything that moves. I can hear the distant screaming and gunfire. I can hear everything.

“ . . . the same rain that draws you near me falls on rivers and land . . .”

We’re not going to live. Even if, by some gods-given miracle, the Cylons don’t find us, we’ll die of radiation poisoning from the nukes. There’s nowhere to go, no anti-radiation meds in the house, and if we managed to get all the way into Caprica City, there’s no guarantee it’s not just a hole in the ground by now.

Why am I not scared? Jamie’s still shaking, even through the song, but my voice is steady. I didn’t think knowing I was going to die would be like this. I thought, if the day came, I’d scream and cry and cling to someone, but it’s not like that. I know what’s coming, and I’m ready for it.

Death is an awfully big adventure, after all.

“But it’s dark and it’s late, so I’ll hold you and wait . . .”

Something explodes, much closer than before, and my voice cracks. Whatever it was, it was close enough to shake the house, and dust from the table rises up in a cloud around us. Jamie burrows his head into my shoulder, and shudders as a loud banging and screeching starts.

They’re coming through the door.

I turn Jamie so he’s between me and the wall, giving my back to the door. They’re not getting him first. Last ditch effort, all I can do now.

And finish the song.

“Everything’s fine in the morning. Rain will be gone in the morning . . .”

I’m crying now, finally. Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer. Artemis, protectress of children, don’t let Jamie suffer. Hera, queen of the Gods, lend me strength as I die. Hades, Lord of Night, grant my brother and I safe passage through the underworld and into Elysium.

Two crashes - the Cylons have gotten through the second and third layers of the steel door - and a bang as it falls in.

Red everywhere, buzzing so loud it’s drowning out everything else.

“ . . . but I’ll still be here in the morning . . .”

Click.

And then nothing.

Feedback is, as ever, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

atlanta never looked the same (BSG, Bill/Laura, R)

2007-03-31T07:48:25Z

Title: atlanta never looked the same
Author: Drea (bluerosefairy)
Rating: R-ish, for adults making with the content.
Fandom/Pairing: Battlestar Galactica. Bill Adama/Laura Roslin.
Disclaimer: Once upon a time, Ron Moore and David Eick recreated a sucktastic 70's scifi show and made it BEYOND awesome. I'm not them. Then they cast Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell as two of their leads. I'm not them, either. I own nothing. Please to not sue.
Spoilers: In order, for the miniseries, "Colonial Day", "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Pt 2", "Resurrection Ship, Pt 2", "Unfinished Business", and my own speculation for a possible S4.
Author's Notes: This is ENTIRELY carla_scribbles's fault. She wrote me a heartbreakingly gorgeous Bill/Laura "Five Things" story called that you'd save me, oh, if you could, and provided me with six shiny new songs that I have also fallen in love with. This is from her return "Five Things" prompt, and the format is shamelessly hijacked from her as well. That entire complaining and placing blame bit? Doesn't mean I hate her for making me write this - because it’s apparently her birthday fic, too. Happy 19, kid - sorry for the lateness.
AN #2: All the thanks, cookies, and porn in the world goes to tzikeh, who went above and beyond the call of beta-ly duty. She had to beta my first foray into BSG smack in the middle of exam time, and deal with my newfound inability to stick to one tense as well as my complete lack of S2 knowledge (I know, SOON).
AN #3: Sorry about the multiple notes. But yes, title and section headers are from the soon-to-be-linked songs. I don't own any of them, either.
Summary: "Five things Bill Adama knows about Laura Roslin, and one he only thinks he does."

~*~*~*~*~

I. you're mistaken to want something to cling to

He'd severely underestimated her.

She is a schoolteacher, a woman more used to negotiating the square-dance of the classroom. She is supposed to be thinking in quantifiable terms. Approximately 50, 000 survivors divided by twelve Colonies equals 4, 166 per colony, and they don't have that kind of room aboard Galactica.

He will not turn his ship into a slaver, will not turn his crew over to be mismanaged and misappropriated by the former Secretary of Education. He will not allow her to turn Saul, Kara, Boomer, Gaeta, or anyone else into square pegs for her to pound into round holes. He will not allow it, and frak it all, she's already taken his son from him. She can't have anyone else.

But from the moment he walks onto Colonial One, he knows that the woman he shut down with a speech on Galactica is gone. In her place is a composed, brilliant politician who cuts his legs out from under him with eight little words and a tone of voice harsher than his own. She chooses her words as carefully as he does not. She will not rise to his bait, nor allow him to draw her into a shouting match. And she pulls absolutely no punches.

She says they have to make a run for it. She wants to run away when they should be mounting a counterattack - giving the Cylons everything they can handle. He doesn't even know why he's considering taking anything she says seriously; unless schoolteachers are trained in the art of war, the woman has no experience as a military tactician.

But the fact remains that she is President. She wants to make the hard decisions when she's barely been President for 24 hours? So be it. He can't tell her any different, not if he doesn’t want to be guilty of that "military coup" accusation she'd thrown.

It just hurts to know that Lee would rather follow her than his own father.

She walks out on him, directing that assistant of hers - what’s his name again? - to show him back to the hangar bay. He looks back through the doorway at her, watching her sit down on one of Colonial One's plush flight chairs.

And then, she drops her poker face - so convincing that he didn't know she had one - and he sees her for the first time. She pulls the blazer more tightly around her, shivering. Her hands shake as she folds them on her lap. She bites her lower lip occasionally, a nervous habit that he swears he doesn't find endearing. She is a strong woman holding it together with all she has, because she was never supposed to be President and everyone knows it. But maybe, just maybe, everyone’s wrong.

He knows that it’s probably not a good idea to bet against someone as unpredictable as Laura Roslin, though.

~*~*~*~

II. won't you keep that breathless charm

She is, both figuratively and literally, a magnificent dancer.

He listened to her over the wireless, listened as she deftly built up Gaius Baltar as a better alternative than Tom Zarek, and waltzed her way through a vote count he knew would swing in her favor. She'd had to cut her losses - Wallace Grey was a good guy, but no politician - and though it had hurt her to do it, Laura Roslin had screwed him over but good.

She's had practice in rolling the hard six, after all.

He watches the celebration with pure pride. This is what those 247 thirty-three minute jumps were for. This is what the water rationing was about. This is what they’ve crossed space and Cylons and each other for.

To watch Lee trip over himself at the sight of Kara in a dress and Saul toast to the good times with Ellen. To let Chief dance with Boomer in view of everyone without the gossip mill rolling. To let Crashdown and Socinus make idiots out of themselves with no consequences other than Racetrack drinking them under the table. To let Gaius Baltar savor his victory, and to keep Tom Zarek from starting his revolution.

And to see Laura Roslin stand there with a smile on her face, humming along to one of his, and apparently her, favorite songs.

He makes his way over to her, and bypasses any small talk in favor of permitting himself the indulgence of asking her for a dance. They've been edging around this for months, and if he's really honest with himself, he's spent every one of them wondering how well they would move together.

And he has his answer.

She moves with an easy grace, insinuating herself against him with that signature directness he’s always appreciated in her Presidency. She slides one hand around his shoulder, intertwines her fingers with his other hand, and matches him move for move. Her hair tumbles around her shoulders as sings the words to the song, appealingly off-key.

He knew she could dance. He now knows that talent does not extend to singing, and that he doesn't really mind in the least.

~*~*~*~

III. but she don't flow to me

He should have known she would call his bluff.

But she’s gone too far. Stealing a military asset (and Kara, Godsdammit, that’s two of his children she’s taken from him now) and sending them off on some insane plot to find a mythical arrow and a mythical planet. Telling Kara the truth about Earth, just as he’d almost gotten her back again after grounding her. Turning Lee traitor and throwing his tags in with her and her religious nonsense.

They’ve drawn their lines in the sand, now. Laura, Lee, and Kara on one side, he and Saul on the other. He can’t punish Kara; she’s out of his hands and has been ever since he told her to leave his quarters or he was going to hit her, just like her mother had. He can do little about Lee except put him in irons and keep him far away from Laura or anyone else. He can’t give either of them orders and pretend it’s going to be okay.

But he can do what Laura had threatened him with, back during the Holocaust, and declare martial law. As long as he’s around, the Fleet will have a leader - one who isn’t chasing prophecy instead of taking care of their people.

The only thing is, it hurts.

All around him, his children, biological or otherwise, are falling apart. Boomer swears she didn't check if her weapon was loaded, and he knows she's lying. Chief, Socinus, Crashdown and Cally are missing, and Gods know if they’re alive or dead. Kara is off chasing windmills and Lee is in chains. And Dee, Gaeta, and Saul are still looking to him for leadership he’s not sure he’s capable of providing.

It hurts, and it hurts more than he’s ever imagined to put Laura in Galactica’s brig and lock the cell between them.

She doesn’t rail at him about the injustice he’s committing. She doesn’t bring up military coups and dictatorships. She doesn’t speak to him at all - just walks into the cell like it’s her office on Colonial One, and faces him as the marine locks the door. She doesn’t have to speak, because everything she could possibly say is all there in her eyes, and it’s not the furious rage or cold acceptance he’d expected.

It is understanding, and it is pain. Neither of them ever wanted to come to this point. Neither of them ever wanted to draw down on each other and see who was left standing. This time, it was him.

He knows that she’s let him win, and that if there is a next time, he will not be so lucky.

~*~*~*~

IV. come down and start now to weep

She told him not to give up hope.

The dying leader foretold in a prophecy he’d never believed in until she opened his eyes and made him see. President of 49,598 survivors of genocide, who ascended to power and caught hold of it with both hands until she couldn‘t hold it any more. The woman living out her last days, free from the lies she’d told and bound in the merciless grip of terminal cancer and hallucinogenic drugs to numb the pain.

A woman who had long since forgotten the meaning of hope.

And she was telling him not to give it up.

She clasped a small black box with her hands, and his heart stopped when he realized what it held. Admiralship. No longer Commander William Adama of the Galactica, but Admiral William Adama of the Colonial Fleet. He didn’t want to know if she were only doing this to engineer a successor in event of her death.

As she explained how Billy had acquired the insignia, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Not when she was like this, pale in her severe brown suit, the heavy cloth hanging off her thinning frame. Not when she spoke from cracked lips and even through the chamalla, the pain shone in her eyes. Not when she couldn’t even stand.

He helped her up, keeping his arms locked around her. Told her not to give up hope, either, and kissed her. A bitter, medicinal taste lingered on her lips, as if he needed to be reminded that she was dying. It was probably a large reason for kissing her in the first place, the desire to kiss her at least once before she was gone coupled with not knowing any other way of expressing how much those admiral’s pips mean to him. But she smiled at him, and it was almost enough to make him believe that she’s getting well.

She walks away with Billy supporting her, and he turns his face, so she doesn’t have to see the tears he can’t hold back. One would think she’d be the one crying; railing at the Gods for this curse they’ve bestowed upon her.

He knows better, though. She’s stronger than that - stronger than him.

~*~*~*~

V. and kissed me till the morning light

He hasn’t felt good, solid ground under his feet in three years.

She had teased him - playing in the sand, Bill? - but he didn’t care, because it they had a planet to call their own. He should be taking care of his ship, but you can’t live your entire life with only steel bulkheads to stare at and some space-proof glass between you and the black.

Galactica is empty. No Lee and Kara, bickering like the children they haven‘t been in a long time. No Saul, enjoying every minute of Ellen‘s manipulations. No Chief or Cally. Barely any crew left. New Caprica has soil and sunlight, grass and trees and her.

Laura.

She should no longer surprise him. But really, who expects the former (and Gods, he sometimes wishes he’d let her rig that election) President of the Twelve Colonies to show up at a ceremony given by the current President bearing really good weed and wearing a stoplight-red dress?

And he is off duty for a few days.

So he loses what little sense of propriety he has left after Kobol and cancer and assassinations, and slips off with her. They end up behind the dance floor on a makeshift pallet, where they lie side by side and smoke and dance around what they really want: to move planetside, to build a cabin, to enjoy themselves for a change.

And then she pulls him into her tent and kisses him. A gift it took her months to reciprocate, and he wonders how he survived without it for so long. He doesn’t care if it’s the booze and the weed and the planet speaking for them, because this is Laura and Bill, no titles, no obligations except to each other.

It is not what he expected. It is slow and lazy - Laura arching under his fingers and tongue, soft gasps and moans urging him on as much as her grip on his hair and her nails down his back. It is harsh and demanding - the relentless canting of her hips as she moves atop him, his hands leaving bluish-purple marks on her thighs and ass. It is smooth and stuttering, torrid and tender. It is everything he should have figured it would be, between him and Laura.

They fit together so well - sweat-slick limbs intertwined with an ease he’s never experienced. She gives him that beautiful, contented smile, and promptly drops off to sleep, head atop his chest.

He knows that if he’d met Laura Roslin twenty-five years ago, he wouldn’t be a divorced workaholic with terrible child-raising skills.

~*~*~*~

VI. tell it like you still believe

He is no longer the man he once was, and it is her fault.

She took a man who once led by a sin of omission, and made him see that there is truth even in the most blatant of lies. She forced him to realize that morality and rules are concepts that a leader must set aside when it comes to the well-being of their people. She broke through every single one of his barriers and made him build new ones. She made him torture and kill and consider assassination a preferable alternative to justice.

And he is grateful for it, many times over, but he wishes that the wisdom she imparted hadn’t come with such a cost.

Lee.

Sharon.

Kara.

All of them, lost. To rebellion, hatred, and Gods-knew-what, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold it together. She’s rapidly becoming his only constant, his only guiding star by which to measure his humanity. As long as she can do what he does, and worse, without flinching, he believes they can overcome anything.

Anything at all.

It is late one night when he finds her in his quarters. She’s slipped away from Tory and Colonial One to hole up with a book of old Virgon poetry and has hijacked his couch. He’s gotten tired of the snide remarks from the Baltar supporters criticizing him for not taking a watch, so he assigned himself third watch over Saul’s objections.

He should have listened to Saul, because he’s probably going to collapse.

She looks up, about to speak, but he must look like three kinds of hell because she just closes the book and stands up, guiding him to his rack. She slides buttons through buttonholes, removes his uniform jacket, then strips him of his tanks, belt, and shoes before pushing him gently onto the bed. He rolls to his stomach as her strong hands glide over his neck and back, patiently unwinding the knots they find. He’s done this for her, after long nights she’s spent bent over paperwork or a podium.

Lulled by the steady motions of her hands, he sighs, finally letting some of the tension ebb out of him. Usually they’d channel it into sex, but he’s exhausted, and she understands. It’s been the other way around a few times, and he’s never pushed the issue with her; they do enough dueling and battling in their professional lives that they don’t need to bring it into their personal ones.

And then she whispers right into his ear eight little words that almost stop his heart.

“You’re a Cylon, but I still love you.”

He knows - has known for a while - that at least half of that sentence is not true.

~*~*~*~

Feedback is, as usual, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

Fic: The Prayer of St. Francis (Shawn/Hunter, R-NC17)

2007-02-03T06:25:26Z

Title: The Prayer of St. Francis
Author: Drea
Rating: R-NC17, for language and adult content.
Pairing: Shawn/Hunter.
Disclaimer: Oh, you better believe my last name ain’t McMahon. I own nothing.
Spoilers: Takes place after Unforgiven 2006, and the DX vs. McMahons/Big Show Hell in a Cell match. If you haven't seen it, what the hell are you waiting for? Find it, watch it, and fall in love with Shawn and Hunter like I have.
Author’s Notes: Full version of the ficlet “Full of Grace”, posted over at starxedhearts. I originally started this as a response to oxoniensis‘s Porn Battle, but my usually non-existent Hunter!muse wouldn’t shut his piehole long enough to get to the smut. And then they got all angsty and this grew from 500 words to six pages. Anyway, much love to Angy for her wonderfully thoughtful beta, and because she puts up with a lot of whining from me in return. Title and quoted portion below are from St. Francis of Assisi’s well-known prayer. You may also know the Sarah McLachlan musical version, and if you don’t, download it. Absolutely beautiful.

~*~*~*~

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace/Where there is hatred, let me sow love/Where there is injury, pardon/Where there is doubt, faith/Where there is despair, hope"

~*~*~*~

It was a well-known saying in the business - you'd let your best friend do things to you that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Hunter had thought it went the same way with family, too. Vince had said to take them to the limit. Vince had said not to work light on him just because he was both Hunter's boss and father-in-law. Vince had told him and Shawn to open them up hardway if they had to. And Vince had sworn Shane could take care of himself.

Vince, as it turned out, was also full of shit.

Because he'd screamed bloody murder over getting busted open. He'd berated both Hunter and Shawn for "unprofessional conduct" - they hadn't mentioned they were going to shove him face-first into Show's exposed ass. He'd apparently told Hunter “a thousand times” not to break the sledgehammer over his head. And he'd put the blame squarely on Shawn for not talking Shane out of that chair-spot-to-the-throat.

And he apparently couldn't count on Steph's support - she was absolutely livid at all four of them.

He'd been "dealt with" first; Vince and the bookers screaming at him until they were blue, red, and purple in the face. Shawn had been made to wait, then "dealt with" separately. Hunter hoped Shawn told them the same two words he had - but with Shawn's newfound religion, he probably hadn't.

The hell of it was, Hunter really was sorry things had gotten out of hand. Not surprised - it was a fuckin' Hell in a Cell, what'd they expect? - but truly sorry for the botched spots and the legit injuries. He'd been absolutely stunned when the sledgehammer broke. Shawn had needed to tell him to go for the pin; not something you usually had to say to a veteran like Hunter.

But he was just frozen. He didn't remember the ref counting, or the medics running out to strap Shane and Vince to stretchers. Didn't remember the screaming crowd or the Cell being raised. Didn't remember anything but locking eyes with Shawn and listening to the low, comforting murmur of his best friend's voice.

"C'mon, Hunt - let's go home. We've done enough. Let the medics take care of them."

He must have been trying to go over there - help check Vince and Shane out - but no, Shawn's arms were around him, pulling him to the side.

"Shh, I’ve got you. Leave them alone . . . they're gonna be okay. It's over. We're done."

He knew in some part of his brain that the match was over, but he was still bleeding adrenaline, flexing exhausted muscles in preparation for more battle. He wouldn't be the first guy who'd experienced it; Ric had fifty billion stories that involved him fighting long after he was supposed to have stopped - in and out of the ring. It had happened to him before, in Shawn's comeback match, when he'd just had to give Shawn that second sledge shot. But not like this. Not this haze of razor-sharp nerves and that "keep going, don't stop swinging" urge that knotted up his back.

But there was Shawn, directing him through the ropes and around the ring. Hugging him close on the ramp and moving to put his body between Hunter and the ring. Hunter wouldn't get past Shawn even if he tried. So he went through the motions - flex on the stage, talk some smack, wave to the crowd, head for the other curtain - with Shawn's arm possessively draped around his waist.

They'd been pulled apart as soon as the curtain swung back into place: Shawn to get cleaned and stitched up, Hunter to face the boss's wrath. He'd absently wished it had been the other way around, as Shawn was only covered in blood from the neck up. Hunt had managed to slice open his side bringing up the blade for the spot into the cage with Shane, and was streaked dark red from the waist up.

Though he’d heard every bit of their rantings, he still couldn’t collect his thoughts together enough to respond. All he wanted was a hot shower and some clean clothes - a fact which took Arn bringing it up to Vince three times before they'd let Hunter go. He'd stumbled back to his and Shawn's dressing room, stripping out of his ring gear the second the door swung closed, and headed straight for the shower.

That was where Shawn found him a half-hour later, slouched against the tile and staring blankly at the opposing wall.

~*~*~*~*~

"Hunt? What's going on?"

Shawn had gotten changed - tee shirt and jeans and those idiotic red cowboy boots of his - and was peering quizzically into the still-running shower. Must have been in a hurry, Hunter noted absently, his hair was still down. Wow, it'd been a while since he'd seen Shawn with that mass of blonde hair around his shoulders.

"Are you okay?" Shawn asked. "Did you slip or something?"

Hunter had to let out a brittle laugh. That WOULD just be the capper to a perfect night. Fuck up in the ring, hurt your family, come close to getting fired, and then fall on your ass in an arena shower. Great plan. They should turn it into an angle.

A muttered curse, and apparently, Shawn had put two and two together, and realized how out-of-it Hunter was, because the next thing he knew, Shawn had kicked off his boots and walked under the spray to kneel in front of him. He reached out, dragging bruised knuckles over the scruff of Hunter's beard, finally causing Hunter to focus on him.

The barest hint of a smile lit Shawn's face. "Finally got your attention, big guy?"

Hunter couldn't answer, just reached out and snagged the belt loop on Shawn's jeans. His best friend came willingly, his body rising to his knees as he slid wet arms around Hunter. One strong hand had made its way into Hunter's hair, stroking and soothing away blood and fear and tension as the other made those signature Shawn-circles across the span of his back and shoulders. Shawn's rough drawl was in his ear, murmuring nonsense that Hunter was grateful for, because it meant he didn't have to talk.

Even here, in Shawn's arms, he couldn't stop his muscles from tensing, but if he'd gotten more foolhardy in his career, Shawn had gained patience. Shawn just kept touching Hunter, chasing away the effects of the Cell, and now he knew why Shawn had gotten so freaked when he'd regained consciousness the morning after the first Cell match in '97. All those matches - seven, counting this one - and he'd never been this combination of hurt and scared. Like being back in that hospital in Birmingham, having his quad stitched back together.

Hunter didn't remember when his brain had switched back on, but everything suddenly came into focus. The floor of the shower in full Norman Bates mode as the blood washed away. The steam rising off the spray of the shower that pounded away above him. The cold tile at his back, seeping into his shoulders where they pressed against it.

And Shawn.

Strong, capable, still heartbreakingly beautiful Shawn, who was plastered to his front and not all that upset to be there. Shawn, who'd been to Hell first and almost didn't come back, but who walked into the Cell not once but twice afterward for Hunter. Shawn, who went off and found himself a wife and kids and God that he didn't have to hide from anyone. Shawn, who gave up the job of best man at Hunter's wedding because he knew it'd make Hunt's father insanely happy. Shawn, who would take numerous sledge and chair shots in his surgically-repaired back because he wanted to build up Hunter's career even more than he already had.

The best partner he'd ever had. The redeemed sinner who stepped right back into the den of thieves and D-Generation X because Hunter had asked him to. The man who never allowed an ill word to be spoken about Hunter in his presence. Hunter's past, present, and future best friend and the onetime love of his life. 'Tis better to be loved and lost', and all that.

Maybe not all love had to be lost.

~*~*~*~

Hunter slowly slid his hands underneath Shawn's arms, bypassing soaked white cotton to cup his face in a shakingly brittle grip. He picked his head up from Shawn's shoulder and finally stared his best friend in the eyes, because Hunter relied on nothing else when it came to the people he loved. Shawn could (and would) lie with his words and actions, but never with those steel blue eyes.

"Hunt- Paul, please . . ."

He had to close his eyes, hands sliding down to rest on Shawn‘s chest. He couldn't look at the fear and want in Shawn's eyes, not when it was laid bare to see and mixed with the plea of his name. It had been so long since anyone had called him Paul (God, even his parents referred to him as Hunter most of the time now) that he'd forgotten the sound of it. Especially like this, a broken gasp in that Texas drawl he loved to hear.

Suddenly, he felt the brush of Shawn's thumb over his lips, and he could feel the hot puff of Shawn's breath against his neck. He couldn't breathe, reduced to a shaking, needful thing, the words he wanted to say stuck in his throat.

Shawn, don't leave me.

Shawn, I'm a wreck without you.

Shawn, I need you and I want you and I love you.

All those things they'd never said. All those things they'd had to finally say, brought to life in the arch of Shawn's broken back and the six-inch scar on Hunter's left leg. Because Shawn had left, and Hunter had been absolutely lost without him. Because Shawn had nearly killed himself with addictions twice over and Hunter hadn't been there to stop him.

Things left unsaid . . . things they probably should have said long ago.

His hands curled into Shawn’s shirt, voice coming out broken.

“Stay.”

Shawn's breath came again at the bend of his neck, but was followed with the slide of those full lips up to his ear. "Let me," he rasped, gently lifting Hunter (all six-foot-four, 265 pounds of him, and he didn't know why he'd forgotten how strong Shawn was) to his feet. He was shaky - nerves and blood loss screwing with his balance - but having Shawn there to support him helped. When Shawn was satisfied Hunter could stand on his own, he reluctantly let go.

Fortunately, it was worth Hunter's while, Shawn stripping off his drenched clothing to stand bare in the spray of the water. Gaze burning over Shawn's perfection, all he could think was - God, it's been far too long.

Nine years too long.

~*~*~*~

So he didn’t say a word. Just pressed an openmouthed kiss against Shawn’s thumb, and pressed himself against Shawn, watching Shawn arch against him with a gasp.

Fucking beautiful, Shawn was, now more than ever. Nine years older, but as he locked eyes with his best friend, Hunter knew those nine years didn’t matter. Not when they still fit together like this, Shawn backing him against the wall and settling into the cradle of his hips. Not when Shawn still kissed him like that - like he’d never done it before. Tangling them into each other with arms and legs and that slicksoft mouth that did things to Hunter he’d never thought possible.

Made him gasp out curses and prayers into the shower steam as Shawn’s cock slid against his, his best friend’s nails raking grooves into his back he’d probably have to explain away later. Hunter whined in frustration as Shawn’s mouth tore away from his own, only to let out a growl of approval as Shawn’s lips slid down his neck to scrape teeth lightly over his collarbone. Apparently he was still wired to find that agonizingly arousing, and only Shawn could still provoke that response.

And still it felt like nothing had changed, as he turned them to rest Shawn against the wall and kissed his way down Shawn's body to kneel in front of him. Not when Shawn swore worse than before as Hunter took his cock in his mouth, and flicked his tongue against the slit on the head just like Shawn had taught him.

Nine years apart, three years married to Stephanie, and Hunter had never forgotten the precise way to make Shawn come apart. He almost cried when Shawn’s hand came to rest on his head. Not gripping him by the hair or guiding his movements or pulling him upwards for a kiss - just there. And it said all those things they’d never needed to say, because Shawn had come out of that water a new man, but the jagged gasp and widened eyes of Shawn when he came were still the holiest things Hunter had ever known.

But he knew the words: This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

So they remembered. In every moan and gasp spilling from Shawn’s lips as Hunter continued to lick and suck and stroke him into insanity. In the insistent pulse of Hunter’s own cock, keeping counterpoint to the snap of Shawn’s hips. In that single indrawn breath when Shawn came, all blown-out pupils and reddened lips. And in that blinding flash of need that consumed Hunter as Shawn pulled him up and flipped him around to press against his back.

He almost stopped Shawn - no, you don’t have to - but Shawn’s voice growled low and hot in his ear. “How did I go on so long without you? You’re the only one that can do this to me - make me forget everything except you and how fucking beautiful you are.”

And then there was Shawn’s hand on his aching cock, closing around him and pumping hard and fast, and he was coming with a sharp keen he hadn’t made in too long. His body finally relaxed, Hunter finally came back down to earth.

“Missed you,” he mumbled, sinking back into Shawn’s embrace. “Missed you so much.”

Shawn tightened his arms around Hunter in response, then reached over and flicked off the shower controls. He pulled the towel Hunter had surprisingly remembered to hang outside the shower off the bar, and drew away gently to wrap it around Hunter. He started to guide Hunter out of the shower stall, but Hunter laid a hand on Shawn’s shoulder, stopping just before the curtain.

Because this was most likely the last chance he’d get before they had to suit back up and become husbands and fathers. Put the personas on with the clothing, just like they did in the ring.

“Thank you.”

Shawn looked momentarily surprised, but his face softened as he looked back at Hunter, then brushed a soft kiss across his lips.

“Always.”

~*~*~*~

Feedback is, of course, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George.

Ficlet: "Full of Grace" (Shawn/Hunter, R-NC17)

2007-01-15T04:38:59Z

Title: Full of Grace
Author: Drea (d_generate_girl)
Rating: R-NC17. Smut, plain and simple.
Fandom/Pairing: Wrestling. Shawn/Hunter.
Disclaimer: Oh, you'd better believe my last name ain't McMahon. I own nothing and no one.
Author's Notes: Written for my prompt of "Shawn/Hunter, sacrament" for oxoniensis Porn Battle (Best of Three). This is a chopped-up, whittled-down, and rearranged snippet of a larger story, set the night of Unforgiven '06, and the Hell in a Cell match against the McMahons and Big Show. Hopefully, I'll finish that one soon, too. Title, summary, and cut lyrics are from the Sarah McLachlan song.
Summary: "Been pulled down by the undertow/Never thought I could feel so low/And through all the darkness, I feel like letting go . . ."

~*~*~*~*~

"Hunt? What's going on?"

He could see Shawn - changed into a tee shirt and jeans, bare feet peeking out beneath the denim - but didn’t answer. When did they get to the locker room? He couldn’t remember anything but muscles shaking with nervous tension and Shawn dragging him away from Vince and Shane and the Cell. He hadn’t meant to let it get so bad - break that sledge across Vince’s back and let Shawn go through with the chair drop onto Shane’s throat - but couldn’t stop it once it had.

"Are you okay? Did you slip or something?"

Hunter couldn't answer, just reached out and snagged the belt loop on Shawn's jeans. His best friend came willingly, his body rising to his knees as he slid wet arms around Hunter. One strong hand had made its way into Hunter's hair, stroking and soothing away blood and fear and tension as the other made those signature Shawn-circles across the span of his back and shoulders. Shawn's rough drawl was in his ear, murmuring nonsense that Hunter was grateful for, because it meant he didn't have to talk.

He picked his head up from Shawn's shoulder and finally stared his best friend in the eyes, because Hunter relied on nothing else when it came to the people he loved. Shawn could (and would) lie with his words and actions, but never with those steel blue eyes.

"Hunt- Paul, please . . ."

He had to close his eyes. Couldn't look at the fear and want in Shawn's eyes, not when it was laid bare to see and mixed with the plea of his name. Had been so long since anyone had called him Paul (God, even his parents referred to him as Hunter most of the time now) that he'd forgotten the sound of it. Especially like this, a broken gasp in that Texas drawl he loved to hear.

Suddenly, he felt the brush of Shawn's thumb over his lips, and he could feel the hot puff of Shawn's breath against his neck. Hunter couldn't breathe, reduced to a shaking, needful thing, the words he wanted to say stuck in his throat.

So he didn’t say a word. Just pressed an openmouthed kiss against Shawn’s thumb, and pressed himself against Shawn, the soaked denim against his bare cock. He hissed at the feel of it, of being inches from Shawn’s skin, and untangled one hand to grope blindly at the snap of Shawn’s jeans.

“Let me," Shawn rasped, pulling his shirt over his head with one hand and going for the button and zip of his jeans with the other.

Hunter watched as Shawn undid the fly and slid the jeans down his legs, stepping out of them and kicking them to the side, finally bare. Fucking beautiful, Shawn was, now more than ever. Nine years older, but as he locked eyes with his best friend, Hunter knew those nine years didn’t matter. Not when they still fit together like this, Shawn backing him against the wall and settling into the cradle of his hips. Not when Shawn still kissed him like that - like he’d never done it before.

Not when he turned them to rest Shawn against the wall and slid his way down Shawn's body to kneel in front of him. Not when Shawn swore worse than before as Hunter took his cock in his mouth, and flicked his tongue against the slit on the head just like Shawn had taught him.

Nine years apart, three years married to Stephanie, and Hunter had never forgotten the precise way to make Shawn come apart. He almost cried when Shawn’s hand came to rest on his head. Not gripping him by the hair or guiding his movements or pulling him upwards for a kiss - just there. And it said all those things they’d never needed to say, because Shawn had come out of that water a new man, but the jagged gasp and widened eyes of Shawn when he came were still the holiest things Hunter had ever known.

But he knew the words: This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

So they remembered.

Feedback is, of course, hugged and loved and squeezed and called George.

I'll slug it out, I'm sick of waiting . . .

2007-01-04T04:43:59Z

Two stories for the price of one, as yuletide has revealed the authors, and I can now safely crow about my contributions.

First, a Carnivale/Sandman crossover: Of Present Sorrows and Two-Sided Coins. Written for triskellian.

This is an Iris-centric piece, and if you're at all familiar with Sandman, you'll know who the title's referring to. Or, you know, you could look at my icon. This story was an absolute dream to write, except without Dream himself and all accompanying asshattery, and I had loads of fun throwing in lots of little shoutouts to people in all of my fandoms.

Secondly, a Life on Mars stocking stuffer: The Morning After Written for Alizarin.

This started out as a cute little drabble I wrote for some ficathon, then turned into a post-eplet for 1x03 when the call for Yuletide stocking stuffers went out. The Chris/Sam? Came as a complete shock to me, as I usually ship Sam/Gene. I like it, though, and I hope I've managed to capture even a little of the spirit of the show.

Feedback is, of course, loved and hugged and squeezed and called George. Or Norman. :P

Also, the rec list I posted a few days ago has been updated with more shiny goodness. Go. Review!

Rec the Halls with Boughs of Holly . . .

2006-12-28T05:43:44Z

So, Yuletide has EATEN my brain for the past 3 days, and I love it! Since all you really care about is the fun stuff, let's get to the recs, people.

Arthurian Legend

The Handmaid's Veil - The fairytale romance of Tristan and Isolde. The majesty and magic of Queen Isolde. The despicable nature of King Mark. All brought to earth, and told by Isolde's maid, Branwen, who has more than a servant's love for her lady. I don't like femslash, but this isn't femslash - it's a story of love, in all of its many forms. This hurts to read, and it should. Written by Alexandra Lynch.

Blues Brothers

Cell Block Full O'Blues - This was written for me! It's mine, mine, all mine! Actually, it's all Elwood, playing the harp in Joliet, and Jake being his usual cranky self. It's brilliantly true to the movie - characterization, plot, and music references are all over the place - and Elwood's singing of "Cellblock #9" is brilliant (and not only because it's a little-known BB song!). Jake isn't left out of the fun, hysterically ignoring Elwood's deep thoughts to muse on how much he misses pizza. It's a fantastic story, and I love it to pieces. Written by Jo Z. Pierce.

Carnivale

Number These Excess Days - I almost don't have words for how amazing and beautiful this story is. I suppose I can describe it best as such: This is the Carnivale story I have always wanted to write. The CroweHouse girls may remember my yammering (and occasional snippets) of a story called "For a Wayward Son", which was about Sofie's tarot reading for Iris the day of Apollonia's rape. Well, this is what would happen if you took my idea, wrote it far more brilliantly than I ever could, and gave everyone a look inside Sofie's head instead of Iris's. The language is just gorgeous, and the layout of the story as a tarot spread is beautifully rendered. The author takes the meanings of the cards she's chosen, and weaves them throughout not only each part, but the story as a whole. Her take on canon actually makes me sympathize with Sofie - not an easy thing to do. And the final biblical quote? One that I have always thought of in regards to Carnivale. It is simply the most perfect icing on an utterly flawless cake. Written by ep shlan.

Constantine/Hellblazer

A Regular Song and Dance - There's so much crammed into this story, and so much to love: how John first met Midnite; a sly little wink to Sandman involving Lucifer and a piano; John smarting off to Gabriel. It is one of those rare stories that remains true to both the original comic John Constantine (in all his asskicking, tough-as-nails blond and British glory), and to the new movie John Constantine (with his more sardonic, drama-queen Keanu Reeves look). The ending is exactly what you expect from a Constantine story, and you're satisfied with it all the same. Written by corialis.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Smelling the Roses - Cameron/Ferris. Every year, someone writes smoking hot Cameron/Ferris boysmut, and this year is no exception. A hot and scarily in-character look at Ferris' obsession with Cameron. The dialogue sounds right out of the movie - some of it is, of course - and the author manages to tie together all these little snippets of character and dialogue. Written by Claudia.

Indiana Jones

Indiana Jones and the Chinatown Ghosts - I can't tell you anything about it, for to divulge the characters, except for Indy himself, is to ruin it utterly. Just trust me on this one - you need to read this. It's a brilliant and heartbreaking look at Indy, ten years after Last Crusade, and the places he does, and does not, belong. Written by Lemuel Cork.

Life on Mars

And the church bells softly chime - Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt, seen through the definitely-not-looking eyes of Chris Skelton, total div. This story is SO Sam and Gene, with their affectionate-yet-insulting bickering and far too touchy for straight men interaction. Chris swears he doesn't want to go there, but he does, and we love it. Fantastic look at the Sam/Gene relationship that might just end in blood and going out for curry. Written by Sascha.

M*A*S*H

the hours between dawn and nothing - BJ/Hawkeye, if you've got your slash glasses locked and loaded. A gorgeously poignant look into BJ Hunnicutt, living, surviving, but not thriving without Hawkeye out in California after the war. BJ is my favorite character on M*A*S*H, and it was always because of the hysterically sweet relationship he had with Hawkeye, and the author has captured it beautifully. The flashback scenes to Korea and the effect they have on BJ are so heartbreaking, and yes, I cried when he called Hawkeye and left him that message. Simply beautiful, in a fandom ridiculously hard to capture. Written by anotherjuxtaposition.

Madeline L'Engle - Time Quartet

A More Honourable Lineage - O Calvin, my Calvin . . . well, Meg's Calvin, really. This is a gorgeously written piece set post-Swiftly Tilting Planet, and deals with Calvin dealing with fatherhood. You just feel how very scared he is, and his interaction with Charles Wallace is practically straight out of L'Engle's head. And oh, Meg is her snarky, brainy self, and you really get the sense that on the surface, unlike Calvin, she really is her parents. But then that's what this story's all about: how most of us really do end up quite similar to our parents, and coming to terms with it. Written by amilyn.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Good Management - Oh, this story is just delicate, beautifully so. It doesn't capture Golden's characters so much as fill in their margins, because you don't get a Nobu like this in the book. Canon Nobu is so abrasive and awkward and hard to understand, and this story takes all of those qualities and makes you understand why. The author also manages to write a Sayuri who is just as self-assuredly frightened as Golden's, and the end scene of this story caused a quiet sort of "oh" to escape my lips. Gorgeous. Written by Ion Bond.

Men in Black

Code 69 - Jay/Kay. Yeah, you read that one right. Nope, no plot here, just a hysterically in-character story with our favorite MIB's trying to stop an alien couple from screwing the Sun to a crisp while absolutely failing to resist the sex vibes floating around. Just, everything in this story is SO practically canon, from Jay's use of the term "flashy thing" to the car providing wet wipes and John Travolta as an - well, I suppose you'll just have to read it to find out. Don't die from the giggle-fits this is gonna induce, guys. Written by thefourthvine.

Mythology

What Freedom in Love - The story of Artemis and Orion, the hunters, and of Orion's unfortunate end, all turned on its head. I love the author's voice in this - Artemis is appropriately goddess-like, but also sounds like any woman in love with two men would. Orion and Artemis have appropriately sexy hunting going on, and you can just feel her falling for him in spite of herself. And oh, what a little triangle we have going on here - Apollo, all jealous that his sister's in love with someone that isn't him. I love the details in this story, how the author has woven together myth and emotion into a gorgeous story. Written by Cori Lannam.

Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle

A Permanent Ongoing Epiphany - Isaac Newton/Daniel Waterhouse. This is my shameless plug, so listen up. I betaed this story, and it gets more brilliant every time I read it. It's intimate and epic and have I mentioned the brilliant? - and it made me go out and buy this series, because I just had to see what else happened to these characters. Go read, especially because the author is a fellow 1st time Yuletider. Written by the ever-so-awesome sarahetc.

RPF

Ten Things About the Kennedys You Never Learned in A.P. History - John F. Kennedy/Bobby Kennedy. Yes, you read that right. Yes, it's RPS. Yes, it's incest. Yes, it's about the Kennedys. I know, I'm going to hell - where've you been? Go read this story. It's sexy, funny, poignant, and just plain brilliant. Written by Ishafel.

Those Who Stand For Nothing - Thomas Jefferson/Alexander Hamilton. This hits just about every bulletproof kink I possess: Powerful men? Check. Who hate each other, except they totally don't? Check. Nothing being a secret amongst them? Check. There's absurdly poignant humor amidst the not-falling-for-each-other? Hamilton wants to brain Jefferson with an inkwell! And it ends with a bittersweet sadness? Yep, that'd be a check too. Written by psychomachia.

Sandman

Reflection - Delight meets Delirium meets Delight meets . . . oh, you get the picture. A gorgeously-written, rather sad and hurty look at what Delirium sees through her mismatched eyes, and what it was like for Delight to change. The author nails Del's voice(s), and her non-sequiturs that sometimes are more, and sometimes just nonsense. Written by vongroovy.

An Awfully Deep Well - An "Endless Nights" approach, in vignette form. Each of the siblings is represented, and oh, they've absolutely managed to capture a bit of each of them. Delirium, and the comfort she takes in seeing Death. The difference between the two Despairs, and how the present one is more controlled. Desire's signature thoughtless cruelty. Daniel's sexual exploration of why he's not Morpheus, and yet still Dream. A mortal, and probably the most accurate, view of Destruction. Destiny and choice. And the changeable nature of Death, in all her infinate and intimate appearances. Written by Laura JV.

The Taste of Honey - I am in complete awe of this story, because not only was it written for me, but it is so very Gaiman in the exploration of a simple day in the life of Morpheus and Death. The beginning tells it all - Morpheus is Lord McBroodyPants, and Death is busy climbing trees and trying not to drop ice cream on him. The deeply poetic style, the spot-on characterization, and the fantastic dialogue all combine to make this story one of the must-read stories of Yuletide '06. And the end? Is quite possibly the most heartbreaking and yet beautifully written things ever. It makes me ridiculously happy that I contributed in some small manner to its creation, and it's being recced to kingdom come. Written by Edo no Hana.

The Sopranos

The World to Come - An utterly brilliant take on the steel backbone of the Soprano family. Carm is razor-sharp satin here, and I wouldn't have her any other way. The author has absolutely nailed Carm's voice (I could just HEAR Edie Falco speaking these lines), as well as all those other facets that make her who she is: the devout Catholicism, her lust-love-loathing for Tony, that sassy Jersey-ness about her, her rocky relationship with Livia. I love the double layer of narrative, Carmela DeAngelis the headstrong girl and Carmela Soprano the whip-smart mother/wife. And I love Carmela's unspoken questions about where the inspiration for all Tony's lavish gifts comes from. Written by the fabulous fairy_tale_echo.

Tanya Huff's Blood and Smoke Series

Smoke and Frost - The only explanation for this story is that Tanya Huff writes for Yuletide. Because this fic? Is SPOT-ON in characterization, plot, and style. Tony is Lord High Dork, with the Buffy references and beige ceiling and knowledge of fandom. Lee is just as hot and sweet as ever. Amy is her usual cuckoo self, and we love her for it. And Henry? At his Prince of Darkness best. It's a casefile that doesn't read at all like a casefile, and retains the distinctive character voices of canon. Absolutely bloody awesome. Apparently written by Brighid.

Torchwood

Paramagnetic - This is MY Captain Jack Harkness: still smooth as silk, but oh-so-broken in tiny places most people can't see. This is a brilliant, fanTAStic story about Jack picking up the pieces in the years after returning to Earth, building Torchwood Three into a credible branch, and forming his team. I love the backstories - Owen's hideous bedside manner, Tosh's adorable gossip sessions with Jack, Ianto's slightly scary attention to detail (he got MI-5 to give them the pterodactyl because Jack said he wanted a dinosaur!), Suzie's self-destruction, and Gwen's shiny newness. I love Jack, dancing his way through life with Suzie, Ianto, and everyone else he can get his hands on, and I love all the little throwaway mentions of Rose, Nine, and the TARDIS. And oh, you know if you've seen the show how inevitable the ending is, and yet it still makes you all achey in the chestal area. Written by Fahye.

That's it for now, gang. Possibly back with more, as I wade through the 1000+ stories in the archive, which you can find here. Oh, and no, I cannot tell you which stories I wrote, because that would defeat the purpose of the "secret santa" part of the challenge. I will say that neither of them are listed here, and that I'm ridiculously proud of myself for both of them on my first year in Yuletide. :P

One Rec and Yuletide update

2006-12-20T04:35:55Z

My yuletide story is written, for better or worse. I was ridiculously pleased with it - hopefully when the archive goes live on the 25th, you all can have fun guessing which one I wrote (no, I can't tell you). And hopefully my recipient will like it as well!

kangeiko was writing Christmas ficlets for people in her journal, and I requested Carnivale/Alias fic, because two dangerous Russian women named Irina cannot go unconnected. Go over there now and leave her some lovely feedback:

Nopheth

Oh, and to my fellow Horsemen - Bethii wishes to inquire if we mind her and her boy's presence at the shindig? She is unsure of plans for New Year's, and has not seen the fantabulousness that is S2 of Carnivale. She is, of course, a fellow J/I fan, and apparently the boy will not mind the fangirl flailing at all.

Email me back, okay?

Letter to Santa!

2006-11-03T17:02:12Z

This is my very first year of yuletide, so therefore, I'll be bouncing all over the place just because I get to participate this year. Anything you write for me will probably set me into orbit over the moon and spinning off toward Pluto. :P No really, I will be fangirling my eventual story like NO ONE'S business and making noises that only small animals can detect. I hope my prompts were just that - prompty-type ideas to get you started and not set-in-stone rules.

But I know you probably want to get a better idea of me for my request. So here's some things I generally like/dislike:

Likes:

- Banter of any kind. It can be the friendly kind or the I'd-cheerfully-rip-your-rib-cage-out-and-use-it-as-a-hat kind. It can be sly and in-character (Jossian banter, Sorkin-esque banter, New Who-type banter) or it can just be two people snarking at each other in general.

- Slash. No really, I have my slash goggles locked and loaded for virtually all of my fandoms (the only exception being Carnivale, but hey, if you've got a plot bunny for Tommy/Justin and think you can pull it off, go for it!). That being said, I'm absolutely not opposed to het. And hey, you can always try a nice threesome and make me break the sound barrier with my squeeing.

- Characterization. You want to see what would happen if Sean and Christian opened up a B&B together instead of becoming plastic surgeons, have at it. Just convince me that they're the same guys I've been seeing on my television every week, and we're good. You want Jake and Elwood to bond with their cellmates by listening to bad disco? Or decide that Justin Crowe's going to forsake his whole world-domination thing in favor of becoming the Carnivale's new tarot card reader? Uh uh - then we have problems. I heart these characters, flaws and all. Seriously - character-driven stories = A+.

- Twisty sexual dynamics. As you can see by my requests, it's sort of hard to squick me. Go ahead, get as porny and smutty as you want. Make it voyeuristic, incestuous, borderline BDSM, full of power games and dub-con, threesomes or moresomes, have fun with the setting - just have at it.

- Missing scenes, character studies, and post-eps. They're like my crack. I can't get enough.

Dislikes:

- Fluff. Sure, I like a happy ending once in a while, but give me a hopelessly ambiguous or dark and creepifying ending any day. Stories involving insulin overload, gratutitous h/c, and rape=love make me want to cry and throw things.

- Hardcore BDSM, watersports, hardcore bloodplay, scat, non-con or anything like that. I like kink, but there's a difference between "using a feather and using the whole chicken".

- Most conventional pairings. If it's canon and het, chances are I'm not too fond of it. C'mon - surprise me! Could I interest you in some Jonesy/Iris? Maybe some kinky Butler/Artemis? Or Zoe/Inara?

- ABSOLUTELY NO MPREG. NONE. FOR ANY REASON, INCLUDING COMIC POTENTIAL.

- OFCs. I'm really more of a canon fan, so staying within the pool of canon characters is generally a good idea with me.

- Bad spelling/grammar. Seriously, spell-check is EVERYONE'S friend. And a good beta reader is worth their weight in gold. I'm not trying to be a terrible person or make generalizations, but the difference between an "okay" story and a "great" story can be in good spelling and grammar.

Fandom-Specific:

Because I have the attention span of a fruit-fly, I'm not entirely sure what exactly I wrote for the prompts, nor the fourth fandom I requested. So comments are set to "screen all", and I don't log IP addresses, so if you leave an anonymous comment with any questions you might have, I'll get back to you.

nip/tuck: ANYTHING AT ALL you felt like writing would make my year. I've found exactly 14 nip/tuck fics, and there really needs to be more. What would send me over the moon would be porny Sean/Christian, but anything exploring their relationship, be it shippy or not, would be amazing. I love the many facets of their characters, so character studies or missing scenes would also be greatly appreciated. I'm not as much a fan of Julia, Matt, or Ava, but a Liz story would rock my socks, especially a Liz-and-Christian story full of snark and bitching.

Carnivale: Okay, anything involving Justin, Iris, or Justin/Iris will make me flail and squee. Incesty goodness is absolutely wonderful with me, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. I'm also rather fond of Jonesy and Rita Sue's relationship, as well as Gabriel, who's probably one of the most underused characters on the show. I like introspecty character pieces, but if you feel the urge to write a plotty fic, by all means go for it.

Blues Brothers: If you're thinking about writing this one, I think we need to get married RIGHT NOW. Absolutely anything would again, make my year. I have a huge soft spot for Elwood, so anything Elwood-centric is fantastic. Jake is always a good bet for comic potential, and I rather like Curtis as their mentor. Plus, think of the musical tie-in potential! SO MANY AWESOME BLUES SONGS TO REFERENCE!

Sandman: I meant it when I said "anything Death/Dream". Shippy would make me do backflips of squee, but again, I know the incest isn't everyone's cup of tea. Banter is always good, so is Death kicking Dream's butt. As I mentioned, I'm only up to "Brief Lives", so no spoilers for anything past that volume, and Morpheus as Dream, please. Please feel free to write crossover or character fic involving John Constantine, too.

ETA - Oh duh! I remembered the 4th fandom I requested.

So in conclusion, I will love you forever for writing me stories - and if you've got questions, you can either ask here or ask irisfan or swirl_girlx, who are pretty much the authorities on my fannish tastes.

THANKYOUSOMUCH!