MEMEmememememememememememe
Aug. 24th, 2010 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyGonna need something to do in my (:/) new house tonight, so I steal a meme from Tora.
Comment here with a number between 1 and4734 er 10233 (¬_¬) , I'll give you the song it corresponds to on my iTunes and write you a ficlet that matches.
Any remaining time will be spent beta reading, I am SO SORRY Tora, I suck so hard. *headdesks*
Comment here with a number between 1 and
Any remaining time will be spent beta reading, I am SO SORRY Tora, I suck so hard. *headdesks*
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 11:51 am (UTC)1/?
Date: 2010-09-03 03:23 pm (UTC)The idea behind it (the way that they justify it to themselves) is this: when there is a lack of certainty, when there is confusion about the way the predator/prey relationship is flipped over and held close and wrapped in fine chains, there is always the memory of this moment. Of high walls and the thick-woven rush gate barred against you; of familiar faces made unfamiliar by flickering torches and expressions of naked greed, not one of them (not one) turned away. (This is how you become a man, my son, prove your worth in front of the village’s hungry faces.)
The memory that stays clearest, though, when the others have faded, clearer than the roar of the crowd and the throb of her growling, clearer than the tusks she bared as they prodded her into the ring, is that he lost. That she knocked the club from his hand but lay down for him anyway, bowed her head for the harness and the weight of his chains. Not in public, of course, but when it’s the two of them on a hillside, no one to see them but the earth and the sky, he has become accustomed to letting her run free, letting her follow the calls where they will take her. And when he finds another monster, he lets her turn her head away.
Her head turns more stiffly now, though, and his hair tied back in its hunter’s knot is grizzled pale. As the sun nears the horizon on the final day he finds his hands clenching into painful fists without his conscious consent, but they relax when she noses against his leading hand.
For a moment, at least, they relax.
2/2
Date: 2010-09-03 03:24 pm (UTC)“No. No, there will be – beyond the hills, there must be – “
“It is time,” she repeats implacably. “I am ready for it.”
“No,” he says again hopelessly.
“Then you would rather be killed yourself?” she asks, her voice sensible and barely allowing even a trace of regret to colour it. “Then they will kill me too, and what good would that do you?”
His hands relax again, this time in defeat, and he bows his head that he might touch his forehead to the greatest of her teeth, a sign of trust that he has long since offered her.
“You are my best – “ he starts, “ – my beloved – “ but his voice fragments in his throat and will not allow him to finish.
“As are you,” she says quietly. And they face the sunset together, begin their walk to meet the Hungry King with his red and yellow jester’s clothes, in the hall of the Golden Arches.
Re: 2/2
Date: 2010-09-03 05:38 pm (UTC)Also, I suspect I will not be able to think of a certain mascot as anything other than The Hungry King from now on. :p
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 12:01 pm (UTC)1/2
Date: 2010-09-03 04:01 pm (UTC)He doesn’t knock – they don’t, any more – and he can tell his hair’s a sight by the particular shape of crooked smile that Bradley’s mouth twists into when he turns away from his laptop. This, though, this goes beyond such trivialities as bed hair.
“Jesus, Bradley, what have you done?”
“The genius, alas, is not my own.” He turns back to the computer and Colin lets out a silent breath of pure and unadulterated relief. The day Bradley works out how to do that sort of thing, it’s just one short hop to him contributing to the frankly terrifying number of Merlin and Arthur based song videos Katie keeps finding and cc-ing to all cast.
“Oh?” He says, instead of repeating all that, if only because Bradley will see it as a challenge.
2/2
Date: 2010-09-03 04:01 pm (UTC)And that’s just – that’s just the worst thing about Bradley, that. The way he has at least twenty different ways to twist his smile (and about a hundred different shades of meaning he can show with them), but every single one of them tugs at the bottom of Colin’s stomach and has him nodding before he even knows what he’s agreeing to.
This is going to end up with the pair of them in headphones and singing along on Youtube again, Colin can tell.
It’s kind of difficult to mind.
Re: 2/2
Date: 2010-09-04 02:13 am (UTC)Also omg you are so right about Bradley's accent, hahaha.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 12:45 pm (UTC)1/2
Date: 2010-09-03 04:15 pm (UTC)The Welsh National Opera is particularly fine that year. The soloists can barely keep the smiles off their faces long enough to act, but that's not really what anyone's there for and the music curls itself across the shoulders of every listener and shoves aside the tensions of the day, drapes a warm happiness tail down the length of their spines.
There's a flash mob in London, one that hasn't been extensively planned an practised for; it starts simply, when an extraordinarily tall man takes the hand of a girl and spins her, laughing, into her boyfriend's arms, but soon the whole of Leicester Square has a smile on its face, and the buskers have never played so cooperatively (or made nearly so much.)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 04:20 pm (UTC)And Torquil, smiling wider than he has these many years, learns how airports work and sets his cap at America.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 04:53 pm (UTC)You don't remember, but once you were very young.
You don't remember, but once the world was bigger than you and unsteady in its moorings. Once the world tilted into your feet and tripped you; and once the world tilted into your feet and tripped you the world disappeared into the crystals falling from your eyes and bending the light around them until there was safety in a pair of hands.
You don't remember because it is only the first step that is the hardest. The first step built the foundations of the world, steadied it under your feet; you don't (remember), you don't need the safety that a pair of hands brings.
You can let go. You can let go and you can let her walk away now because (you don't remember but) it is only the first step that is the hardest. The first step away from her will rebuild the foundations of the world.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 02:08 pm (UTC)Also, hi, you do not suck! ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-09-03 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 08:43 am (UTC)Arthur walked around Arthur and looked him up and down, appraising. The line of his suit was perfect, his hair flawlessly styled; he'd never wear those cufflinks, certainly, but that was surely only meant to annoy. The expression on his face was maybe a little too pinched - an easy dig - but Arthur's fingers rose to his own face, feeling the way the skin folded around the frown there. As he consciously smoothed it, the expression was echoed, and both sets of lips curled into something approaching a smile.
"I'd still win in a fight," Arthur said.
"Of course. This isn't the Matrix, darling, there is no 'I know Kung Fu.'" The Keanu voice was perfect of course, eerily so, and Arthur's small smirk evolved into a full-blown grin.
This time the expression was echoed more tentatively; the dimples were frankly appalling, but then he probably wouldn't have seen them before.
"That is fantastic," Arthur announced; other Arthur couldn't quite hide his surprise.
"That's not what people usually say."
"What do they usually say?"
Other Arthur grinned, an unmistakeable Eames grin that sat strangely on Arthur's face.
"Piss off."
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 07:58 pm (UTC)Ohhhmygod they are the cutest! I love this ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 03:08 pm (UTC)1/?
Date: 2010-09-04 05:52 pm (UTC)"Am I a butterfly," Aziraphale asked the rather nice chablis that had agreed to be his friend this evening, "dreaming itself to be an angel, or rather an angel dreaming that I'm a man?"
"What?"
That wasn't the chablis, obviously. That was Crowley, slumped in a wickerwork chair on the other side of the table and glaring at his own wineglass as though it had done him a terrible mischief. It had got him drunk, admittedly, but it wasn't as though that was entirely without his participation.
"Old philosophiphophical question, dear boy," Aziraphale said, rather proud of himself for successfully navigating that frankly tricky sentence. "Am I an angel who occasionally dreams of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it's a - " he groped for the conclusion, rather certain that the first iteration hadn't gone entirely right.
"Wineglass," Crowley suggested.
"Wineglass," Aziraphale agreed uncertainly. "Or, or book, or something. Or - did it have to be able to dream?"
"Don't think butterflies can dream," Crowley said. "Not about being people, anyway."
"Or wineglasses," Aziraphale pointed out, and Crowley conceded the point with a brief wave of his hand.
"Or wineglasses. Question of perception, isn't it?"
2/3
Date: 2010-09-04 05:53 pm (UTC)"Stands to reason," Crowley went on doggedly. "Butterflies are all - all smells and things, right? Scent trails and pollen and - am I thinking about bees?"
"I like bees," Aziraphale said, perking up. "Delightful honey machines."
"Right, but you wouldn't accuse a bee of dreaming in full 3-D technicolour, would you? It'd all be flowers and pollen and complicated communication dances, not - " he cast around for something suitably human, and landed on - "those Tesco self-service machines and Eastenders."
"Maybe a butterfly has a very active fantasy life," Aziraphale protested primly, managing to get back to the original point through sheer force of will.
"Maybe, but then why would it be dreaming it's you?" Crowley's train of thought was getting more sensical by the moment, his speech likewise. "No offense, angel, but you're not exactly the stuff of wild fantasy."
"No," Aziraphale said after a moment, sounding... if not less drunk, then at least entering the maudlin stage thereof. "I suppose not."
3/3
Date: 2010-09-04 05:53 pm (UTC)"Or Lady Gaga," Aziraphale agreed, a trifle mournfully.
"When have you heard of - " then again, he probably didn't want to know. "Or Lady Gaga," he agreed instead.
"Hmm," Aziraphale agreed, but he didn't sound happy with it, staring into his glass of chablis dolefully.
"You'd only be fantasy material," Crowley said after a moment, "for someone completely unlike a butterfly."
"Or a wineglass," Aziraphale said, and dredged up half a smile. "Yes, probably you're right. It was a ridiculous line of - "
"Someone who'd seen a lot more excitement than a butterfly," Crowley continued, irrepressible. "Someone who'd had enough of the high life, and the hedonism, someone who needed something a little more ordinary and middle of the road and soothing to complete them."
"Yes," Aziraphale said snippily, grabbing hold of the wine bottle again and frowning in concentration as it would insist on shaking a little, "thank you, Crowley, I get the - "
"Someone like me," Crowley interrupted, closing his hand over Aziraphale's and helping him pour his drink.
Re: 3/3
Date: 2010-09-07 02:24 pm (UTC)I love this lots and LOTS.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 03:49 pm (UTC)Heh, I was *totally* thinking about doing this recently, but no way am I writing fics. You're ambitious!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 02:50 pm (UTC)Of course the way that this would usually work would be another man waiting in the wings somewhere, sweeping her off her feet like something out of one of those brightly coloured novels you can only legitimately read on a journey. And there would be some grave wrong about it, since ‘wasn’t working’ doesn’t hold the weight that something like this ought to; like it should take a wrecking ball to destroy something with such strong and certified foundations.
(It’s felt for a while, though, like she’s been holding it in her cupped hands, shielding it from the faintest word or breath or sigh…)
It’s rain, instead, blatting against the window and smearing the landscape across the glass. It’s the strange hot metallic scent of water against dust, blown in by the speed of the train (and the way she can breathe it in and in). It’s the way that she stretches the whole length of herself, down to her fingers and toes, like a cat.
Mostly, it’s the unbidden thought that this is happiness; how she almost didn’t recognise it.
Carefully she unfolds her hands – for there is always caring, there has and will be always caring – and lets out a breath.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 03:33 am (UTC)I love the song. I've adored Ryuichi Sakamoto ever since I saw Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. And your ficlet is lovely and immediate and beautiful. ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 03:20 pm (UTC)His blood had been rushing in his ears like the sea for hours, now, but the stretch of white sand across the bedroom floor was new. Remus watched, bemused, as a wave rushed across the bottom of the fireplace, but that wasn't the oddest part; there was a parrot in the curtains and it kept trying to talk to him.
"Tell it I don't like the Preraphaelites, James," he croaked, every word grating the inside of his throat.
"I'll tell it," came right along with a stone-cold-ice-cold-knife-cold cloth across his skin. Remus flinched and tried to roll away but the same voice soothed him gently; not James' brook-bubble-laugh voice, or Peter's earth-brown-mole voice, but a voice like chocolate and rough woolen blankets and laughter that was just on the right side of mean.
"Thought you had - football," Remus managed, holding the coughing back until tears ran freely from his eyes.
"Football's not that important," came right along with a strong arm curling behind his shoulders. Sirius hadn't stopped talking about football since the season had started; it was a hallucination then. That made it okay. Remus leaned back against his imaginary Sirius, and listened to the parrot extol the virtues of Waterhouse.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 05:17 pm (UTC)1/2
Date: 2010-09-05 03:42 pm (UTC)"Dress him up, stick a tie on him, he's still the same old Sirius."
Remus had known James far too long to jump at that, but he couldn't quite stop himself from clearing his throat and quickly changing his focus, dragging his eyes away from Sirius to focus on where Lily stood by the buffet. She didn't look radiant, it was one of those practically impossible adjectives; Remus hadn't ever seen anyone look quite so happy, though, he didn't think.
"I think your focus is in the wrong place," Remus answered.
"Not me." James filched a sausage roll from Remus' plate and grinned. "You've been looking in the wrong direction all morning." He straightened his cuffs in a ridiculously overblown way, smoothed down the front of his tux. "Aren't I supposed to be the center of attention?"
"Don't know what you mean," Remus said, looking down at his plate and picking holes in a piece of quiche.
James looked at him for a long moment. Remus could feel it.
"James - "
2/2
Date: 2010-09-05 03:43 pm (UTC)"He knows where I am."
"And he knows what you threatened to do to him last time you two spoke," James said impatiently. "Just - he's sorry. You know that."
"I know that," Remus readily agreed. "I'd just thought - if he cared, he would have - "
James' shoulders hunched slightly, involuntarily. It was amazing Lily'd got him around to talking about his feelings long enough to propose, really.
"He does," James insisted. "That's why he hasn't told you." James' smile was crooked, rueful. "You're not the only one who knows how bad he is for you."
"I - "
But that was Lily, calling James for the first dance. And that was Remus' cue to go to stand in the most shadowy of corners, over by the wall, where he couldn't inadvertently tread on anyone's feet.
"Moony," said a low voice, just by his ear, and Remus' stomach clenched in anticipation - whether for something, or for nothing, (and which one would mean more), he wouldn't be able to say.
Re: 2/2
Date: 2010-09-06 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-24 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 04:18 pm (UTC)He half fell onto his backside, not quite catching himself on palms pushed back, but he was grateful for the dust and grit in ways he'd never thought he could be. The change in weight made him groan a little, like nothing'd ever felt so good, like sunshine and his momma's pies and the end of a hard day's work, like his woman had her strong hands pushing every knot out of his shoulders as her familiar complaining lowered into a beautiful soft buzzing in his ears.
He stretched out his bum leg in front of him, ignoring how the dust turned darker beneath it; it was easier than he'd thought to picture the slow rocking sway of an empty carriage and lose himself inside it. The sun-baked dust splintered into worn wood beneath his back; the distant sound of dogs, making their way to him out of the growing darkness, were just about rhythmic enough to turn to wheels clattering over sleepers. Clattering over sleepers. Clattering over -
Maybe the dogs'd be too slow, he thought, just on the edges of dreaming, lightheaded enough he could ignore the way the tracks started to rattle against the back of his head. Too slow to catch the Midnight Special, too slow to beat his ticket out.