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Jan. 13th, 2006 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyLeave me a drabble of backstory. It can be about anyone -- one of your characters, one of mine, someone else's, no-one's. Anyone. Then I'll write one for you.
Resurrecting the meme because I'm restless and want to write something. If you're not in the mood to write me something you can just comment, I guess.
I make no guarantees how long my headache will allow me to be awake, of course.
For those who need to know, probably 2.30/3 tonight.
Resurrecting the meme because I'm restless and want to write something. If you're not in the mood to write me something you can just comment, I guess.
I make no guarantees how long my headache will allow me to be awake, of course.
For those who need to know, probably 2.30/3 tonight.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-01-13 12:26 pm (UTC)Cooler than Professor Grindle, who let him study dragons during off-hours.
Cooler than Terry Shacklebolt, who was the beater on the Gryffindor team, and seemed to ooze cool like most adolescent boys ooze perspiration.
Cooler than Bill, and Bill was the coolest.
She was silly, and always pretty, and nice.
And she was a Hufflepuff, which exposed Charlie to the worst ridicule ever when he'd stop to say hi to her in the hall.
"Weasley, she's a bloody Hufflepouf. We've gotta get you a good old, brave, Gryffindor girl. 'Sides, I heard she was a dyke with that hair, mate." Charlie turned his head, and blanched as the phalanx of Gryffindor boys closed around him.
She'd heard, he could see. He shot her an apologetic smile, and, her face burning red, she smiled back weakly. Her hair was already changing, turning longer, girlier.
She kept it that way for a while.
Charlie noticed.
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Date: 2006-01-13 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 12:44 pm (UTC)Something was wrong, and he didn't know what it was, and it was killing him. He'd asked Crowley to weasel it out of the angel, 'cos he wouldn't share confessions (how he always thought about it, even when it wasn't) only it wasn't the same with the demon. And Crowley was always willing to do a little bit of extracurricular evil.
(Especially if it meant 'Dora would smile again, only he'd never really admit to that.)
Aziraphael maintained that he didn't know what it was, though, so Bernard was fiddling with his latest design and waiting for her to come around to talking in her own time (and he definitely hadn't taken up smoking again. It didn't count, if no one knew.)
Every time he caught a flash of bright pink, or lime green, or violent violet out of the corner of his eye, his frown got a little bit deeper.
So it took him a little while to notice the suspicious silence from the study, where Sunny was being a Big Girl, and watching the little one play. It wasn't as though there was all that much they could get up to, not with the magical wards on anything dangerous. (And the bookshelves. Aziraphael had insisted).
And then a swiftly muffled exclamation that sounded like the beginning of a swear word had him instantly on his feet, in the doorway to the study before he'd even noticed he was moving.
"Made art."
Sunny was, somehow, spotless. 'Dora was gaping, however, at Anthony, whose solemn face was speckled with bright paint that had dripped off his hair. His now entirely pink hair.
"Merlin's beard, Sunny," she breathed, and there was an edge of laughter in her voice that released a tension Bernard hadn't even known he felt.
"Black is better?" Sunny enquired innocently, and Bernard felt his face break into a grin. She was a manipulative little monkey, and he loved her for it.
"Black is better," 'Dora echoed, and turned to Bernard, silent apology in her eyes.
"Right, you, bath," he told his son, and bent to pick him up, looking up at his wife. "And then we'll talk."
"And then we'll talk," she promised.
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Date: 2006-01-13 12:47 pm (UTC)Black is better.
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:41 pm (UTC):-*
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 01:10 pm (UTC)The pub’s almost pitch black after the bright summer sun. Dylan only just avoids tripping on the half-step, and curses the British for their weird aversion to adequately lit drinking establishments. America sucked, but at least they design their bars properly.
Jez, in front of him, is staring blankly into space, and Dylan thinks again that his first impression was obviously right – the guy’s got to be nuts. Nobody sane would spend quite that much time off in la-la land. In the dim light Jez looks older, slightly mysterious. Almost dangerous, for someone who twenty minutes ago had been jumping out of a skip like a five year old on crack.
Dylan decides that, as with many things, he’s going to have to make the best of it. They’ve got to work together, for a while at least, and so he smiles, pats the bar, and says “Buy you a drink?”
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:12 pm (UTC)WRITE MORE, WRITE MORE!
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:22 pm (UTC)*love*
*is maybe attempting more and will maybe send you later, omg*
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Date: 2006-01-20 11:34 am (UTC)"Or a post-captain."
" - I concede your point, but I still bid you be a little more gentle with me, joy."
"You're sure you don't need attention, Stephen? There's nothing pressing that won't allow us to go somewhere with surgeons - "
"That they might whip off my leg, I suppose? Your sudden trust in surgeons surprises me, and I wonder that you don't consider me capable of prescribing my own treatment."
"You're sure you needn't be bled, or operated on? The blow to your head - "
"Means I have barely enough for myself, and I shan't have the leeches fattening themselves at my loss. Stop fussing, Jack."
"You looked to have done yourself in."
"But I hadn't. The head always bleeds more than it ought."
"But you looked to have done yourself in, and I couldn't - I shouldn't like it if that happened. I'd count it as a favour if you wouldn't, Stephen, for I don't think I could be doing without you."
"You speak as though I don't think the same, every time you must join your impossible, idiotic battles.
You needn't answer that. Tie it a little tighter, Jack, if you would."
"My place is on deck, with the men."
"Then you have no place sending me from your side. Not until duty calls."
"Stephen - "
"Don't, Jack."
"But - "
"You needn't; I understand.
You'd never make a surgeon, my dear. Your hands tremble."
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Date: 2006-01-20 11:44 am (UTC)Thankyou.
*hugs*
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:16 pm (UTC)He knows gardening. It is the feel of soil between his fingers as he carries it from ice into fire, the look of roses as they crisp to black in a sheltered corner of hell, the sound of water that is the opposite of refreshing.
He knows love. There is the bright shining incandescence of God's presence, and the ecstatic flare of Lucifer's regard. There is the gentle affection of Apharah and Niall and Aurora. And there is Sobran, who is all of them and none.
Xas also knows sex, better than he ever meant to. And out of all the things that he's learned and loved and lost--that's the only thing that makes him feel damned.
And he could almost regret it.
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Date: 2006-01-14 08:11 am (UTC)"It seems such a very odd idea," the angel continued. "To be that intimate with a person, I mean. Such an inconvenient method of procreation, don't you think? Almost as if... oh, I don't know. As if you were asking if someone wouldn't mind terribly if you stuck your finger up their nose."
Crowley choked on his glass of particularly fine Chateau Margeaux.
"It's not all about procreation," he eventually managed to choke out, as Aziraphale flailed at him with a handkerchief. "A lot of them do it because they like it."
"Well that's humans all over, isn't it," Aziraphale answered tartly. "Always - "
Whatever it was humans were always doing was lost to posterity, since Crowley chose that moment to lean forward and press his mouth against the angel's. Purely in the name of scientific debate, of course.
The angel's lips were even softer than they looked, he thought, with the strangely lucid calm of one who couldn't quite believe what they were doing. And: bloody Belgium, he's going to kill me. And then even that was gone, as Aziraphale's mouth opened the very slightest amount against his. He didn't even manage mental coherence enough to wonder if all angels tasted of tea.
"I - " Crowley hadn't known skin was available in that shade of pink. "Goodness, Crowley." Plump fingers rested lightly on the back of his hand, and Aziraphale smiled at him in an entirely new way. "I don't suppose... that is..."
"If you're asking," he answered, in a voice that was wobbling around the edges of hysteria, "if I want to stick my finger up your nose, angel, then the answer is bloody no."
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Date: 2006-01-14 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-14 08:28 am (UTC)well I was giggling when I wrote it...
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:25 pm (UTC)Sam is nine, and he doesn't quite hate any of this yet, but he's well on his way. There are two good things about doing target practice out here in the fields, and only two: the fact that Dad leaves each boy to a different field, and takes a third for himself, so he's not constantly being corrected, and the fact that he has a Walkman, so the quiet of the grasses and trees -- rarely interrupted by animal noises -- doesn't get to him so much.
Today is especially better, because a friend of his from school lent him a few cassettes (and he knows he shouldn't, but he can't help thinking that the boy isn't really all that smart, letting someone who's been there all of two weeks borrow things) over the weekend. They're classical, but they're still new.
The humming gave him away.
"Sammy," Dean says, headphones in one hand and Walkman in the other, "don't ever hunt with your ears covered. Someone could sneak up behind you and kill you, and you'd never hear it."
Sam sighs, and shrugs, and knows that it's still better than if his dad had found him instead.
A few days later, he sees Dean in his room listening to something that looks very familiar. Now, though, there's guitar screeching from the headphones. He won't be any better off if he busts his eardrums, Sam thinks, and scowls at the carpet.
He wasn't really expecting to see it again, anyway.
I am your special stunt Sweeney
Date: 2006-01-13 01:39 pm (UTC)That was the thought that hit him as he stepped into the infirmary after talking to the captain, after making sure that River was
(still there, not going away)
asleep.
Somebody's sister, maybe -- probably -- and definitely somebody's daughter, of course somebody's daughter, but Simon didn't like thinking about his parents nowadays. It made him angry, and -- when he'd admit it to himself -- sad.
The mechanic (he heard her name in the captain's voice, in the Companion's voice, too, Kaylee, a little-girl name, a name for your xiao meimei) was asleep. Her eyelids looked bruised in the shadow-filled light. That was something he'd have to work on in the coming days -- and just that there were days that would be coming, when they'd be safe --
He shook his head, turned his back on her, started rifling through the drawers. The pain meds would be wearing off soon, and she'd been moved too much today. Patients were supposed to stay still after they'd been --
"Doctor?"
His shoulders tightened up again; he was being observed. Her voice was sleepy, muzzy, maybe she wouldn't even remember this at all -- but he was being observed.
"Yes?" He went to her, aware at some level of his split lip, his rolled-up sleeves, his undone collar, at how unprofessional he looked -- but the rest of the world was turned upside down. There was no reason he shouldn't be either.
"I -- " The mechanic's head turned to look at the secondary bed. "Is she okay?"
Simon's shoulders dropped, and a sigh escaped him before he could stop himself. "She's asleep right now." And again, before he could stop himself -- "I'm -- I'm sorry. For -- "
For what? 'For getting you shot?' You can't say that.
" -- for everything," he finished. "For...all of this."
"Hey." Her hand lifted, and it was painfully obvious that she'd been drugged; her hand moved as though it were forcing its way through something gelatinous. Her hand lifted, and dropped on top of his. "It's okay. Things...happen."
River's eyes used to be that wide. Used to be that trusting.
Somebody's sister.
Simon swallowed, and turned back to the open drawer. "I'm...guessing you're in a little pain."
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:45 pm (UTC)The telepathic web wouldn't stretch that far. Not seventeen light-years.
Don't leave us. We need your thoughts. Come back. The voices repeated themselves for hours, for days, long after he'd left the surface of his planet. After a while, he couldn't tell whether they were the thoughts from his friends, or the echoes of their pleas inside his own head.
They'd told him when he signed up for Awakening duty that it would be hard. Seventeen years trapped inside a spaceship, with nothing but his own thoughts, could be harder than anything else he'd known. People went insane from the loneliness, sometimes. They warned him about the sudden babble of thoughts he'd drop into when he approached a new world, how to shield himself from it, how to keep his own distinct personality from being overwhelmed from billions of little minds. They'd lost so many that way, shielded in a cloud of indigenous illusion, their unique Volkon psyche squashed out of existence by the necessity to fit in.
Don't leave us. You might never come back.
That's exactly what I want, he said.
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Date: 2006-01-13 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 02:23 pm (UTC)Mark hates seeing Angel like this - out of everyone, why is it the group's emotional center fading out first? - but he can't just stay away. Not when he's about the only person the hospital staff is sure won't take a major health downslide himself from visiting. Besides, someone would have to kick his ass, and it wouldn't surprise Mark if Angel tried it himself.
Angel's sitting up in the bed today, which is always good to see, even if the whole picture still isn't very pretty. "Hey, honey."
"Hey. How are you?" It's a silly question, but Mark can't help asking.
"Fuckin' freezing. Unfortunately, they won't let Collins stay here all the time. You?"
"I'm... managing." However barely.
"It'll be okay eventually. Somehow."
"Don't know how you can say that with so much confidence."
Angel smiles, but it's a near thing. "Guess I'm just special like that."
"You never cease to amaze me. Here, brought you something to help pass the time." Mark digs in his messenger bag and pulls out the books that were sharing space with his camera (the camera that's never out in here, since he can't bring himself to film Angel looking like this), and hands them over.
"Thanks." Angel barely glances at the bok on top - Mark's abused first-edition copy of Moving Pictures - and adds, "Looks interesting."
Mark grins, despite himself. "You haven't even read the backs yet!"
"I don't have to. The duct tape job speaks for itself."
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Date: 2006-01-13 03:07 pm (UTC)"Valentine, would you please come up here?" The history teacher looked up from her desk, smiling at Val. The rest of the class stared. Rarely was the blonde girl recognized in class. She didn't raise her hand, and teachers rarely called on her, unless in an effort to actually get the right answer for once, when the rest of the class failed to understand.
Standing, Val walked up to the teacher's desk, expression flat. China was threatening a couple of its neighbors, and Demosthenes was, as usual, ranting against anything un-American. Needless to say, her mind wasn't exactly in the right place. "Yes, ma'am?" Standing in front of her teacher, she put her arms behind her back, green pen behind her ear, a quiet defiance of the constant typing on laptops.
"The principal would like to speak with you, Valentine, about one of your essays." The woman pauses. "You are free to go now."
"Yes, ma'am." Striding out of the class, Val blinked, Why would the principal wish to talk to her? She never ruffled anyone's feathers. Part of the job, really. She couldn't let people know who she was.
When she was finally in front of the principal, he grinned at her with that sort of beatific smile adults give to children who are going to recieve a great surprise. "Miss Wiggin, your history teacher showed me your comparitive essay on Locke and Demosthenes. It's excellent! I've seen college students who couldn't write like that. And your analysis is pointed and interesting." He pauses, blustering with fake grin. "I have a friend on one of the DC newsnets, and he would love to publish your column."
Oh, crap. Inwardly Val kicked herself. She'd tossed off that essay without thinking about it. That would teach her not to pay attention when she was doing homework. Taking a deep breath, she launched into a long explanation of why she did not want to be published. She didn't want more interest at her family. Peter was already four grades ahead, Ender was at battleschool. And, really all she wanted was to have a normal childhood, and be a normal little girl.
It took a while, but finally, she convinced him. Large grey-green eyes and blonde hair helped with the pretense of innocence, really. She was allowed to go back to class with a rather ill grace. However, she won. The newsnet that carried Demosthenes' column would not be carrying an essay connecting Locke and Demosthenes. That was too frelling close. Next time, she had to be stupider. It's the only way to keep up the facade.
Delia of Eldorne, in case it's not clear.
Date: 2006-01-13 03:39 pm (UTC)They forget that only half of her family was one of them, that the other half remembers being conquered. They forget that she grew up in a castle with scorch-marks on the walls and a father that drank too much and cared too little. They forget that she was actually good at learning, and could argue that black was white with footnotes. They forget that underneath the green and white silk and bright eyes was a little girl amazed at what she could do.
Jemis look back, and wondered how his little sister had managed to stay good for so long. And then he wondered why she hadn't taken everyone down with her.
She could have.
Because Delia was petty like that.
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Date: 2006-01-13 06:09 pm (UTC)- 0 -
I'm eleven years old and I think I spend half of my life standing in lines but that would make me actually five and a half years old and for a minute I wish I were because then I would not be stuck here watching really tall idiots sucking face. It's so stupid. I just want a Hershey's.
Five and a half minutes later I step away with my chocolate and the wrapper makes a noise like k when I open it, very softly k. Very many times. Behind me the idiots are sharing a lollipop. I kind of think that's gross but I also wonder what candy would taste like with somebody else's saliva on it. Brown isn't a flavor but chocolate tastes brown anyway as I'm walking away and I'm thinking what kissing must be like, kind of wet and warm, maybe, but what if your lips are closed? When I put my fingers up to my lips kind of experimentally I can feel a piece of dead skin and I wonder if you could feel that with your lips if it was somebody else but I don't think you can . . . lips don't seem very sensitive. I get a lot more sensation from the fingertips than I do from my lips if that makes any sense.
I peel off the dead skin and decide I should start using Chapstick. It's February and it's funny how dry I get when it's raining outside.