charts, facts, figures

Fic: Vampire Blues [Interlude] (Salem's Lot, Ben and Mark, PG-13)

flyakate — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 06:41:41 GMT

Title: Vampire Blues [Interlude] (A03)
Summary: Ben and Mark, after.
Fandom: Salem's Lot
Rating: gen
Characters: Ben Mears, Mark Petrie
Notes: Written for Yuletide for smallearthcat. I ran up against the deadline and so didn't really do this story justice--I could also easily see it as the beginning of a longer work, but still I enjoyed tracing out the bizarre relationship of Ben and Mark and what it must have been like to be back in "reality" after the novel.

*

Vampire Blues (Interlude)
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/275869.html. people have commented there.

Fic: A Land So Wild and Savage [Love Balland Remix] (Due South, Fraser, gen)

flyakate — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 00:37:16 GMT

Title: A Land So Wild and Savage (Love Ballad Remix) [A03]
Fandom: Due South, with a hint of Dresden Files (see notes)
Rating: gen, though I suppose pre-slash if you squint
Pairing: Fraser/Winter? Fraser/Victoria, could be read as pre-Fraser/Kowalski
Summary: Many years later, Ray would meet the Winter Lady and tell how he fell in love with Winter. This is the story of how Ben Fraser loved her first.
Warnings (highlight to read): death of parent, grief, estrangement from parent, undetailed death due to exposure
Notes: Written as a remix of One Warm Line for Remix 12: the Dirty Dozen. That story is a crossover between Due South and The Dresden Files, where here little knowledge of the other show is necessary. However, by reading them both together (the original, then the remix) I think they create something nice.

Blow, blow thou winter wind. ~ William Shakespeare

Benton Fraser, whose mama always called him Ben, knew from a very young age that Winter was dangerous. Unforgiving. Deadly.

In looking back at our childhoods, we sometimes paint our memories with new understanding; make comparisons and judgements based on knowing beyond our current years.

But he is very certain that the sight of his father driving his team back into town with a blue-tinged lost drifter pulled from a hidden crevasse is pure and unvarnished truth.

Winter, unchecked, meant death. Ben was six.

Of course, he learned later that year that death could come even in the Summer, that a day full of sunshine and green growth could end in blood and grief. His mother died in June and yet his memory of it was frozen, frigid.

This cold swelled to encompass Ben’s whole childhood, from the well-meaning chill of his grandparent’s cabin to the abrupt howling of icy storms that always seemed to accompany his father’s scattered visits. Ben would always escape to the woods to forestall any goodbyes, following empty paths in the woods and drifts in the snow banks until the tears ripped from his eyes could be explained away by the wind.

Winter, alone, meant grief. Ben was twelve.

But even after the ache of his mother’s death and his father’s absence lessened (cooled), Ben found he could walk in the woods along half-forgotten paths as easy as breathing and while often storms could howl and rage, the quiet drift of snowfall after could be almost peaceful. His grandfather taught him how to track animals in the drifts, how to use snowshoes to ease his way. His grandmother fretted and knitted and tried to ease the chill. She did not know that Ben found the cold more familiar than the warmth ever could be.

Ben and his friends learned that with Winter came stories, Artic stories of Sedna, Inuit goddess of the sea, or of clever Raven traveling the crackling Northern Lights amidst the spirits of the dead. Ben knew from school that the lights were collisions of particles and gas, but all those facts could not capture the otherworldliness of the lights curving and arching above him.

It made him wonder what stories could be told about the harsh beauty of Winter, if there was a different Winter in the cities than out here in the Territories. If there were, he wondered if they got any closer to explaining the lovely vastness of it, the danger even in the quiet.

While many of his friends dreamt of moving away to find cities and new lives, Ben never did. He carved out a space for himself with his scholarly grandparents, in the edges of his father’s silent visits. When he was finally old enough, he slowly snowshoed to the closest outpost and signed up to join the RCMP. His grandmother said his father would be proud. His father would continue to be away for the next seven months.

Winter, chosen, meant home. Ben was seventeen and now introduced himself as Benton Fraser, RCMP. Only his grandmother still called him Ben.

Other recruits talked about how it was lonely out on patrol. Ben didn’t think so. The sound of the wind through the trees and the glitter of ice crust on the drifts made more sense than any of the overtures of friendship during training. He was friendly, but made few friends. It didn’t really bother him.

Ben tracked criminals through rivers and woods, rocky hills and icy paths. He helped in manhunts run by more experienced Mounties and then, slowly, was solving cases under his own authority. Being a Mountie’s in his blood, the other recruits whispered. Where others turned back at the sight of storm and snow, he never did. He knew Winter’s secrets, the others told each other.

Ben almost believed them. But Fortitude Pass reminded him that Winter had more secrets than he would ever dream to know.

He could feel the cold curling into his bones, stealing the breath from his lungs and the heat from his body. He and Victoria—he had been unable to think of her as the thief, the criminal since he had stumbled upon her shivering and alone two days before—lay with limbs intertwined, the halting words of a poem the only thing holding them from sleep and death. He’d known since he was six that Winter meant death. But, there in the lean-to was something far different than death, instead like reaching across a thousand lifetimes to find something… warm. Alive. When it all ended in betrayal and heartbreak, Ben wasn’t surprised. Most things did, after all.

Winter, survived, meant love. Fraser was twenty. He was almost glad his grandmother had died the previous year—it was appropriate that the only ones who still called him “Ben” were jailed or gone.

Fraser knew he’d been a Mountie for too long when he looked at recruits and thought green before he thought young. But then he’d been forced out of that early, hardened and prepared by a cold few knew or could withstand as easily. He’d seen even more lost in it, not simply to death (blue-tinged or green-warmed, both still cold in their own way) but lost in the heart of Winter even long after they’d found their way back to the outpost. Fraser knew that looking to hard into the heart of anything, even something could you loved, could still damage you.

He left the Territories damaged and lost, heading towards the City so that he could put the memory of his father’s last moments in the icy snow to rest. Here in the City were different rules, but still crimes to solve, hurts to heal. Fraser even found himself trying to bring his new friends of the City back to the Winter he knew, but Vecchio’s trip ended in bullets and fire, crumbling his father’s cabin even as it brought justice.

When Victoria had returned to him it was springtime. She’d rushed in, a biting force so like the wind from home that he’d been swept up by it. Still, he should have remembered. Remembered that love can damage, that her love can fracture the deepest. But it was warm and she was warm… the gunshot hit like ice, shattered him like the wildest of storms. He fell into the rush of cold, thinking that this was why his father had asked him if it would snow.

Winter, unchecked, meant death. Or should have. Fraser was thirty-six.

Ray Vecchio hadn’t really understood why Fraser wanted to go back, he was too much of the City. It was fitting them, that the Ray that replaced him was of the City too. But Ray Kowalski surprised Fraser. He might be of the City in a way that Fraser could never be, but when Muldoon had resurfaced, Kowalski joined the hunt, clinging to each icy cliff with amazing stubbornness. Their fall into a crevasse seemed a fitting end. Those that were drawn to Winter would be struck down by it. But, amazingly, they survived. Perhaps it was that even in the coldest of storms, Ray had sunshine about him. A vitality unmatched by the cold. For the first time, Ben remembered one could be warmed by a smile.

Winter, together, meant peace. Fraser (Frase, Benny, Benton, Ben) was thirty-eight.

They continued their journey, after Muldoon captured and justice served. Ben knew it was a temporary adventure, Ray loved the City too much to stay here forever, and there was something inside him that matched the howl of the storm too much to leave it yet, if ever. But it was hard to know the future, and better to remain in the now. Benton Fraser stood, breathing in the chill air (a run of good days, though he knew how quickly that could turn) even as he heard Ray stirring in the tent. It was the kind of day where Winter held all its potential out in quiet hands, showcasing the silent beauty of snow drifts and ice-capped trees.

Ben Fraser had heard that those who looked too deep into the heart of Winter could go mad, or blind. He’d seen it, heard the stories since childhood. But he also knew that Ray was strong enough to withstand it, just as he had been. Whether it was the touch of Summer they had about them, or something else. He figured that only the stories would say for sure.

"The great sea stirs me.

The great sea sets me adrift,

it sways me like the weed

on a river-stone.

The sky's height stirs me.

The strong wind blows through my mind,

It carries me with it,

so I shake with joy."

~ Uvavnuk, an Inuit shaman

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/275500.html. people have commented there.

Fic: Second Steps (Without a Trace/Rent; PG-13; Mark/Roger, Danny/Martin)

flyakate — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 23:11:07 GMT

So, a million years ago, I was thoroughly obsessed with the tv show Without a Trace. I was looking through my show tag (oh, the nostalgia of looking back at what and how I wrote in my livejournal back in the day) and was struck again with how much I enjoyed the two of them. Of course, the show itself was mostly concerned either solving the case of the day or the Jack Angst show (periodically with the Jack and Sam show, or the Martin and Sam show...) but what I always appreciate about fandom is that we can take and improve upon it, giving them more background and plot and sex :)

Back in the day, I had claimed Danny/Martin for crossovers 100 (remember when those kind of comms were all the rage? Oh, fanfic100, all the feels) and had written out several different scenarios where the pair could pop up. I still hold out high hopes for my CSI and Without a Trace backstory crossover... but regardless. I knew this one could work, and scribbled out part of it sitting in a New York city coffee shop. 9 years later, I am posting it outside a Palo Alto coffee shop. I like the parallel.

Title: Second Steps
Fandom: Without a Trace, Rent the musical
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Danny/Martin, Mark/Roger
Summary: Post-The Road Home. Sometimes second steps are even harder. But there are things that make them easier.
Warnings (highlight to read): drug use, relapse/withdrawal recovery, mention of harm to children (non-graphic)
Notes: So I wrote a good chunk of this back in (checks) 2006. Without a Trace was still a show, still a fandom, and I always meant to finish the story. Cut to 9 years later; I was digging around in my unfinished fics and was hit with nostalgia of Danny and Martin, their friendship and the relationship that so many of us had shipped. So I had to finish this and share it.

Martin was early for once—Danny’s doing—and so could take the time to pick the least squeaky chair in the room. While years undercover had forced him to remain motionlessly unaffected by the most horrible of situations, Martin hadn’t been able to sit still easily since he’d gone off the pills. One of the symptoms of withdrawal that would fade, his doctor promised, and Martin tried to take deep breaths every time he felt the jitteriness coming on.

He sat up straight again, wishing he didn’t feel so… vulnerable. That had been the biggest hurdle in coming, even after the first time with Danny in the next chair and with the thought of Danny’s face if he didn’t show propelling him out of his apartment and up the steps of the community center and into Narcotics Anonymous. He was a Fitzgerald (or, even harder, son of The Great FBI Deputy Director Fitzgerald) and feeling weak wasn’t something that happened often. Most of the time feeling at all wasn’t exactly a Fitzgerald strong point, he thought to himself, then cracked a smile at how much that sounded like Danny.

For a moment, this meeting felt like the first, and he could still see the relaxing of Danny’s shoulders as Martin slid into the seat next to his, the crackle of the newspaper a tangible sign that Danny had been counting on him, hoping for him to come.

(But, God, the fight they’d had beforehand, after awkward words in the office led to frigid ones in the living room, blistering ones in the bedroom… too often he still felt the guilt and fear from that almost swallow him. It would have ended them, almost had ended them, but Martin wouldn’t give up on this, and he knew that Danny wouldn’t give up on him.)

Slowly, it had gotten better. Talking with Jack helped. Sitting quietly with Viv helped. Joking with Sam, about everything and nothing, helped. Danny, talking or quiet, funny or serious, always helped. But tonight Danny was down the hall with his own demons, not to mention ghosts of others, so Martin leaned back in his blessedly squeak-free chair and tried to blend in.

He knew it was only his imagination that made his neck itch, had made his skin feel tight every time he reached the door to a meeting. Rationally, Martin knew that he wasn’t noticeable, just another slightly harried guy in jeans and a sweatshirt; the outfit was carefully chosen to construct another layer of normalcy and anonymity. Any projection of FBI agent was in his own mind; he’d spent enough time on undercover spots for Jack and back in Seattle to know that the random glances in his direction were actually random. No covert speculation about how far the Fitzgerald Son had fallen.

It was funny really, how the times he came here were when he felt the most, and the least, like his father’s son.

A slight patch of quiet began at the front of the room and spread as people found chairs, ended soft greetings with their neighbors, turned their gaze to the table at the front. After a moment, a man stood and smiled.

“We’re going to start the meeting now, and I was to thank you all for coming. You’ve gone through a lot to just walk through the door,” he looked around, creating a moment with each person whose gaze he caught, projecting as much calm and acceptance with his voice as he could. “If you want to share, we want to listen. Let’s get started.”

After a short pause, a woman stood to speak. Martin let the words wash over him, trying to kick the feeling that it was a case from work: names, numbers, two years sober, six months in a new relationship, a reconciliation with an angry child two weeks ago (he yearned for a pen to create a timeline and after a breath forced his hands to unclench).

Martin felt himself relax a little, another little shred of the shame he’d gripped since that first time, the first time with the squeaky chairs and lukewarm overcooked coffee, faded a little more, slid a little more solidly into what he was almost ready to call self-confidence. The woman who had been speaking stopped, slightly teary, and returned to her seat after a huge from a somber-looking man who must be her sponsor.

Another person, this time a man, weary-eyed and hair going grey, stood and began to speak. For some reason, he reminded Martin of his father. Something in the shoulders that were trying to straighten, not stoop, the precision with how he spoke.

Martin hadn’t dared tell his father yet, felt the words dry up and disappear every time the phone rang. Danny had said that, when Martin was ready, he could help him tell his family. Jack, in his halting way, had said the same. Still, if (no, when, it would have to happen at some point) Martin detailed this whole mess, the way he’d been drowning and only the pills had made it seem better, then they hadn’t worked either so it’d been the sweaty clench of a stolen prescription in his palm, the look in Danny’s eyes… well, whenever he told the details his father deserved to hear, he wanted Viv with him. Not because she would be particularly warm or gentle about it, but because she had a way of shutting down someone with a look, and he thought that power might come in handy in case his father got any ideas about a reply.

Martin had been so caught up in the image of Viv giving his father a firm and no nonsense talking to (maybe he could convince her to do it for no reason at all, that’d be even more satisfying) that he’d missed the changing of speakers. When he started listening again, there was another man at the front. This one was scruffy blond and tired. Martin wondered if everyone here looked tired.

Probably. They all understood that life was exhausting enough and then adding in resisting the creep, tug, pull of pills, booze, needles… was almost too much. He was pretty sure he looked it too, though the endless drag of it at was better and while some of that was being clean he knew that most of it was due to Danny. Too bad they can’t prescribe that. Take two Danny Taylors and call me in the morning.

“…so for a while, it was shit,” the man was saying as Martin tuned back in, his voice the kind of raspy that wouldn’t sound out of place in a rock band. “Turns out when all you do is get high enough to forget that your band is broke, you kind of suck at doing things like eating or paying rent. And when you’re high, your band who you thought was your friends can be pretty blunt about how you can’t sing anymore, can barely tune your guitar and don’t need to come back tomorrow. Needless to say, I don’t talk to those guys anymore.” A bubble of laughter in his voice.

Apparently he was (had been?) in a band. Stop profiling and listen, Martin’s inner Danny voice reminded him patiently.

“I knew I should quit, especially after my girlfriend died… I tried, actually, and was clean for a while but then it was another problem, another day that ended in y and there I was again.”

Martin had to smile bitterly at that, remembering the times he’d spent huddled on the bathroom floor, telling himself this was the last pill, he’d go cold turkey right after this prescription ran out, no more, he swore it… He still woke up from nightmares where he had shot and killed, children covered in blood on the ground, Danny screaming at him, and when he tried to explain, empty pill bottles rattled out of his hands onto the street.

“And every time I slid back, went back to it, my friend would drag my sorry ass back to rehab, always after me to keep trying, that he knew it was hard…”

Danny’s calm quiet next to him at that first meeting being the old thing that stopped him from running. The look on Danny’s face when he told him to get help being the only thing that stopped the denials cold, dried up the excuses like the hot air they were.

“Hell, he even kept me away from the guys dealing on the street. And he’s a skinny dude, you’d have thought he’d been lifting weights or something, iron grip of his. Pretty sure he even talked to a few of them, ‘cause there’s this one that won’t make eye contact when I walk past.”

There was a rustle of laughter. Martin immediately flashed to stand-offs he’d had in uniform, the violence too often tied up in buying drugs on the street. For a friend to get in the middle of that was amazing.

“Anyway,” the man continued. “I don’t know what I would have done without a really good friend… a few good friends, actually. I’d been terrified after April died that I was alone, but sometimes friends are family, you know? The kind of family you should have had in the first place. And they can save your life.”

After a cluster of reminders about next week and a gentle request that anyone looking for a sponsor please feel free to ask (Martin felt a prick of anxiety, but it wasn’t as impossible-sounding as it had been. Maybe he’d ask Danny if he had any recommendations) they were free to mill about, drink bad coffee, or leave. Martin joined the small crowd that was drifting towards the door. Martin found that he was standing next to the last guy who’d been speaking last. The guy glanced at him as they walked and, for once, Martin felt the need to say something, with what he knew was an awkward smile.

“I really appreciated your… story.” He mumbled. Damn, he still hadn’t gotten a hang of what to say. Sucks to be you? Thanks for sharing your pain with us tonight?

But the other guy smiled back, much less awkwardly. Martin was surprised by how much it changed his face; it lightened the tension in his green eyes and made him look less tired. Martin realized that the guy was closer to his age than he thought.

“Thanks. Glad I could tell it.” There was enough amused irony in the guy’s voice that Martin smiled wider.

“Martin.”

The guy nodded.

“I’m Roger.”

Then they were at the door to the center, and Martin shivered as a gust of wind whipped down the sidewalk. He shrugged into his coat and opened his mouth to say something else, but Roger had turned to look towards a blond guy calling his name from the curb.

“Gotta go, man. Night.”

“Night,” Martin murmured as Roger walked towards the other man and before he got too far away Martin could hear him chuckle. The two of them turned down the block, towards the subway probably, but not before Martin saw it: Roger and the other man kissed, a short relaxed brush of lips before Roger said something that made the blond laugh.

The look of it made Martin’s cheeks heat; not because he was embarrassed, but because it looked so… natural. Like they weren’t even thinking about it. Maybe, Martin thought slightly belatedly, this was Roger’s “good friend”. He hoped so. A gust of wind hit again and Martin swore under his breath, digging into a coat pocket for his gloves.

“Looking for these, Fitzy?” He looked up to see Danny, grinning at him from his relaxed slouch against the brick wall of the center. He was holding up Martin’s gloves. “You left them on the coffee table.”

“Thanks.” He slipped them on, trying to decide if the sudden warmth was from their time in Danny’s hands, or if that was just his imagination.

“How was it?” Danny asked quietly, with that tone in his voice that meant he was being careful.

“Good.” Martin paused, remembering Roger’s smile. Friends can save your life. “Really good. You?”

“It was fine. Maria says hi, and asked me if we wanted to come to dinner tomorrow night. You know, I think she has a thing for you,” Danny added, teasingly.

Maria, Danny’s sponsor, was sixty-three and had five children with her husband of thirty-five years.

“Well, how could she not?” Martin said, hoping to make Danny laugh. He did, the last of the tightness he got in his voice after a night at AA drifting away. They were walking to the corner and Martin slowed to a stop.

Danny slowed too, looked at him. “What?” he said, when Martin didn’t say anything.

Before he could over think it (a Fitzgerald trait Danny was slowly breaking him of), Martin stepped right into Danny’s personal space, closing his gloved fingers on the front of Danny’s overcoat and tugging him closer before kissing him, feeling the warmth of Danny’s breath and getting a glimpse of the surprise in Danny’s eyes before it was only the slight chap on their lips and the familiar smell of Danny’s cologne and, further away, the slightly musty smell of a New York street corner.

He pulled back, smiling a little at the look in Danny’s eyes. Martin made a mental note to try to stun Danny Taylor more often. Especially if it involved kissing him like that.

“What was that for?” Danny’s voice sounded tense again, but the good kind of tense, the kind that said he was thinking things that Martin was going to enjoy greatly when they got back to the apartment. It also roughly translated into You’ve never kissed me in public before. What gives?

“Thanks for the gloves,” Martin replied, and he grinned at the look Danny gave him as he stepped to the curb to hail a cab. He kept smiling as Danny gave him funny looks the entire ride home.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/275445.html. people have commented there.

Fic: Nightcap (Study in Emerald; Moran; gen)

flyakate — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 09:46:29 GMT

Title: Nightcap (A03)
Summary: Moran and Moriarty have a hard time sleeping. Moran wonders why that might be.
Fandom: A Study in Emerald
Rating: gen
Characters: Sebastian Moran, James Moriarty
Notes: Written for Yuletide Madness for gyzym . It never really fleshed out the way I'd hoped (and the deadline didn't help), but I enjoyed sketching out the clearly doubtful Moran from the original story.

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. ~Charlotte Brontë

***

It happened again. I woke from sleep (while I am often plagued by nightmares, tonight’s sleep was uneasy due to a chill in the air and inadequate heat) and stumbled into the sitting room, thinking numbly to warm myself with some tea or something stronger.

I saw my colleague and roommate-in-arms sitting silent by the window. I hesitated, unsure if, like last night, I should retire unseen to my room. Or if I should simply creep to the sideboard for my drink and return to hope for sleep, like the time before that.

I must have spent too long hovering in doubt because James made a sound that was the shortened huff of a laugh and said, “sit down if you wish to. You won’t be a bother to me.”

Uncertainly, I sat in a nearby armchair. I had once thought that these nighttime meetings would be infrequent. But truly it was a unique week where I did not find my companion a silent witness to the night.

I was never sure what kept him from his sleep. Was he filled with doubts about what we do? Seeing the images of the dead whose names and details fill the files that Lestrade sends, the stories that the papers write of mysterious disappearances, tragic accidents. I wondered what Rache and his friend would think of those accidents. Whose blood would spill from the doctor’s knives.

Was he plotting? Planning? Organizing methods to bring Rache, that Restorationist hunting dog, to heel? I frequently fear that this need to win will consume him along with his prey. He has spoken of the fact that it seems fated that we work together, than I am here. I do not know what future will occur should his fate and mine unravel from each other. I do not want to know, though sometimes I dream of it and the terror wakes me more harshly than any memory of a case.

I wondered, but I had learned long ago never to voice that kind of thinking. Even the thoughts themselves filled me with a chill, makes my healing shoulder (now more pink than white, and the thought fills me with something that I have to call happiness, anything else is too dangerous) ache briefly.

It is only a short time before I rise, even colder than before, and seek my bed. I am sure the pattern will repeat again soon, the only unknown being whether it is chance that pulls me from sleep or my own dread dreams.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/275042.html. people have commented there.

Fic: The Case of the Curious Menagerie (Study in Emerald; Holmes and Watson; R)

flyakate — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 09:42:27 GMT

As you perhaps remember, last Christmastime I was super psyched to write a piece to world build A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman. If you still haven't read it, go here.

Nothing says Christmas like messing around with ACD canon.

Title: The Case of the Curious Menagerie (A03)
Summary: Later that afternoon, the young woman who had written appeared at our door. That she had found us at all spoke to not only her skill at seeking out less than legal avengues of help, but also of the severity of her problem. Once she was seated, I could see the desperation and fear that had driven her to seek us out wash over her face, making her voice tremble and hands quiver.
Fandom: A Study in Emerald
Characters: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson
Rating: R
Notes: Written for Yuletide for Satchelfoot. A twisted reimagining of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band".
Warning: (highlight to read): Vague and specific references to Lovecraftian insanity. Death of animal-like creatures. Vague reference to assult/PTSD. Tentacles and bodily harm.

***

I had found myself at loose ends for the afternoon, and was in no mood to look over my writings (essays to be sent to the various Restorationist papers that Holmes and I had contacts in, the beginnings of a new play to sow seeds of discord among the people, other notes about our travels and deeds). Fortunately, my malaise did not have long to ferment, as one of the many street urchins who scratch a living delivering messages (and who view Holmes as a combination savior and drill sergeant) came to our rooms with a request for aid. It was unsigned, but clearly from a feminine hand, one rushed and fearful.

Later that afternoon, the young woman who had written appeared at our door. That she had found us at all spoke to not only her skill at seeking out less than legal avenues of help, but also of the severity of her problem. Once she was seated, I could see the desperation and fear that had driven her to seek us out wash over her face, making her voice tremble and hands quiver.

Her name, she said, was Helen Stoner. Her father had died many years previous, and a few years later her remarried mother followed him, innocent victims to a mysterious “plague” that swept through a corner of London—this being the convenient story when one of the Royals momentarily lost his head and caused an extensive body count. Helen and her twin sister Julia had been away on the Continent at school and had returned to find they were now under the guardianship of their stepfather, Dr. Roylott.

“It had all been so sudden,” she murmured faintly. “My sister and I had been away at school for much of the year, so we were not even present at the wedding. We had only spent such short amounts of time with our stepfather since and he and Mother had been living for some time in India. Yet now he was the only family we had and we were lucky to have any place to go at all.”

The unlucky, it did not need to be said, all too often were left on the streets of London. The truly unlucky were never heard from again.

Miss Stoner explained that her stepfather forbade them from returning to school and instead moved them both to his draughty estate hidden from its neighbors by several crumbling rock walls and a copse of dying trees. Dr. Roylott was a loud and angry man, all too often turning away clients—he had a medical practice languishing due to his unpleasant manner and countenance—and distancing himself from peers and staff alike. Miss Stoner complained that what little staff he had did not stay long and what was more, he had several unsavory characters visiting at all hours. I thought it odd that the doctor was still able to maintain such a large property with so little income, but decided to keep it to myself. Miss Stoner seemed bent on finishing her story in her own way.

Through the various things Miss Stoner told us of her stepfather—and, more revealingly, what she did not speak of—I wondered if his anger had ever been directed towards her and her sister in a more sinister way. I wondered if the true purpose of her trip to us was to solicit some sort of violent revenge upon him. Though he was clearly human, (it was a sad fact that monsters wear the same disguises we see in the mirror) the stories of his controlling and vindictive behavior towards the girls had me leaning towards offering my knives to her myself.

But the path of the story veered away from her stepfather’s past behavior to Miss Stone’s present problem.

“I had begged my stepfather to let me attend a friend’s Christmas party almost a year ago,” she said. “There I happened to make the acquaintance of a young man of pleasant manner and fine reputation. We began courting in secret to spare us my stepfather’s rage. This past month, he asked me to marry him.”

I made the appropriate noises of congratulations. But Miss Stoner’s face was drawn with grief. No joy at this news lay there.

“I had hoped that my fiancé and I could marry quickly and take Julia away with us from the horrible home my stepfather had made. But it is too late.”

Quickly, she described how just three days previous, Dr. Roylott had been very particular about placing his two stepdaughters in adjoining rooms in the west wing of the house. Their old rooms, he explained, had floorboards that needing replacing and were unfit for habitation.

“The doctor was very set in his decisions,” Miss Stoner said. It did not strike me strange that she did not call him Father. The man did not seem to conduct himself in a very fatherly manner at all. “When he gave an order it was easier to follow it than… suffer the consequences. And the quarters were adequate, though the heating was poor and we often complained to each other of the chill. Still, all was well; Julia and I had great plans to leave as soon as my fiancé could gather the funds for our wedding. Two days ago, my sister and I both took our leave from each other late in the evening. We had been staying up later than usual to discuss our plans for a new household, one far from our stepfather’s reach. It was…” she faltered. “A happy evening. I went to sleep easily, but woke in the dark a few hours later. I wasn’t sure what had awakened me. I thought at first that it was sounds outside my window. My stepfather has a great collection of animals from his travels, all sorts of oddities. I think part of his joy is that their ferocity means that Julia and I cannot ever sneak from our chambers at night.”

Miss Stoner gave a shudder and I felt a creep of unease at the idea. My colleague brought her back to the matter at hand.

“Your sister?” he asked.

“I heard her,” she said brokenly. “She made a noise unlike any other I have heard. A wailing scream that made my skin crawl. When I had finally forced her bedroom door open some time later—the door was locked fast and I had to leave to find a servant to break it open—she was dead. The doctor said it was a sudden apoplexy, an attack not unlike brain fever. But…”

“…you think otherwise?” Holmes said softly.

“I think my stepfather would not wish to see his two daughters, each worth a thousand pounds, leave his care and drain his pocketbook,” Miss Stoner said flatly. “Will you help? I wish to flee from here, but I cannot leave in good conscience, thinking that my stepfather murdered my sister. He should pay for her blood with his own.”

Unsurprisingly, my friend agreed readily to aid Miss Stoner. My original assessment was not completely false; it was a revenge mission we were enacting.

Holmes bade Miss Stoner return to her stepfather’s house, but to make preparations to stay at a friend’s that evening in secret.

“Is it possible for you to slip away? I know you have mentioned the dread creatures on the grounds,” he continued when she began to argue, “but if I could assure your safety, would you fly?” As Miss Stoner agreed and departed, he turned to me and spoke, “We must also make haste ourselves. I fear that the good doctor will have tracked our client here. I will lose my composure and our solution to this case if he happens upon us.”

I argued that wasn’t Dr. Roylott’s death our main objective? After the lengthy list of his crimes (and suspected guilt in Julia’s death) I was itching to lay my hands on the fiend. Holmes disagreed.

“While Dr. Roylott should suffer for his stepdaughter’s death, and I have no doubt of his guilt, I fear that there is a greater evil at work here,” he replied, and so with that we gathered our belongings and fled. In any case, we had remained overly long in our present lodging and it was past time to find a new one.

With Miss Stoner’s safety that night secured, we made our own plans to visit Dr. Roylott’s estate. I spent the hours until dark preparing my tools, checking that the edge of each blade was free from stain and sharp as a winter wind. I was surprised upon our departure when Holmes pressed a revolver into my palm.

“The game we hunt tonight requires stronger means, my friend,” he said. Then he would answer no more questions and simply made haste towards the edges of town where Dr. Roylott’s home stood.

I recalled Miss Stoner’s mention of her stepfather’s various creatures, and I wish I could tell you that they were simply a group of wild bests collected from his time abroad. But the eyes that tracked us through the dark shone with madness, and the growls and whimpers we abandoned in our wake left a residue of terror and otherworldliness on my skin. Some sick joining of Old One and animal, then, oh the horror. My blades flew freely enough, and they bled into the night.

When finally we reached the west wing of the house, we saw the dim shape of Miss Stoner waiting for us. She had crept out via an unlocked window and, with our assurances that the dreadful animals had been dispatched, she disappeared into the dark.

We entered the house through that same unlocked window. I gripped the revolver tightly in my hand, wondering what other strange animals we might meet. But the house was quiet as we made our way towards the rooms where Miss Stoner and her late sister had slept.

We found our way into Miss Stoner’s room, where (as we had requested) she had left a lamp burning as if she were up late reading. Upon Holmes’ signal, I doused the light, and we were left with the dim trickle of reddened moonlight through the curtains. I realized that I did not know what we waited for. Dr Roylott slipping inside, come to kill his second stepdaughter? But the door did not open, silence remained.

Just as I was turning to my colleague to ask him about our next course of action, there was a subdued sound that made my blood congeal and stutter in my veins. A slipping, no, a slithering. It put me in mind of those thrice-damned hills in Afghanistan where I had been nearly killed and I swallowed a rush of nausea. I raised the revolver, but before I could move further, Holmes clutched my shoulder and in fact closed his hand over my mouth. I couldn’t breathe, could barely see, and dared not move.

A previous clutch of seconds passed. The sound, that dreaded, terrifyingly familiar sound still continued, but seemed… fainter? Removed somehow?

Suddenly, there was a horrendous shriek of terror and pain, the sound of a soul being irrevocably torn into pieces. Holmes burst into action, throwing the door open and, as I numbly stumbled in his wake, threw open the door on the far side, into the room that had been Julia’s.

There we were greeted with a terrible sight, one that my hand shakes to put to paper. Dr. Roylott was standing close to the wall, a small candle guttering to wax at his feet. Above him, he had his hands raised towards what I saw was a heating grate in the wall. Coming from the grate was a monstrous twist of muscle and flesh, some kind of tentacled horror that grasped and sucked at the doctor’s face and neck, making the most awful sounds… it was too much, I flung myself back into the hall, feeling Holmes pluck the revolver from my hands as I fled.

Dimly, through the narrowing of my consciousness, I heard the sharp report of a gunshot, and Dr. Roylott’s madness-filled wailing ceased.

I nearly fainted, felt myself dropping to the floor but there was Holmes’ hand at my shoulder, arm pushing me upright, body dragging me down the hall.

“Hurry, Watson, we must set this all alight before any more loathsome deeds be done. The real culprit must burn.”

In the company of Sherlock Holmes, I have committed many acts of treason and murder. This was the first arson I had ever been a part of. Holmes had prepared a violently combustive concoction of noxious chemicals and we stood in the safety of a stone wall, watching the wind whip the flames into an even higher conflagration.

When I could finally speak again, I managed, “How did you know?”

“That Dr Roylott was harboring an Old One in his estate? I was not completely certain. I had hoped it was something more innocuous like tainted food or even a poisonous reptile. But when we met with that foul menagerie, I was fairly certain that poor Miss Julia was simply an offering to an abomination. Clearly the ‘unsavory characters’ suffered a similar fate.”

We left the property that night and sent word in the morning to Miss Stoner that her sister was revenged. I hope she and her young man have a safe and happy life together, and that her sleep is not plagued by any memory of her sister’s last moments. I can only speak for my own experience with death, and I find its influence quick to enter the mind and slow to leave.

That is the end.

Though I will say that when I went once again to the Roylott estate, after even the rafters had burned to ashes, I dug in the remains to pull apart and dissect that foul monster that had nested in its walls. Returning home afterwards, I slept sweetly, without dreams.

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Fic: Restoration [Cornish Dance Mix] (Dark is Rising, Will, gen)

flyakate — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 04:22:19 GMT

Title: Restoration (Cornish Dance Mix) [A03]
Summary: The Grey House (which was still called only that by the older residents, no matter that it now had a proper house number and postal code just like the rest of the village) had ceased to be grey some years back; its boards weathered white by the wind and the salty air. Will wondered if he should paint it, but the expense and hassle seemed a bit much for accuracy in a title, and Will had learned long ago that old names can still be true, despite appearances. More true, even.
Fandom: The Dark is Rising (future fic)
Rating: G
Notes: So, funny story: I saw this go by as a pinch-hit in Remix and was thoroughly convinced that I had gotten the reply fast enough. I was, in fact, SO SURE that I didn't realize until deadline that I didn't get to write this. So I waited and posted it as an amusing gift, because I'm a goof. So what follows is a remix of the drabble Orientation, or really a further expanding on the reason Will is at the Grey House.

***

Will found the key where the note had indicated and unlocked the door, pushing it open with a shove as the moisture-swelled frame resisted. As if I didn’t remember I was near the sea. To continue the theme, the house smelled faintly of salt. As he walked from room to room, he noticed the sort of held breath feeling that a house holds when it is too long closed up and vacant.

Not empty anymore, he thought. Mine.

The Grey House (which was still called only that by the older residents, no matter that it now had a proper house number and postal code just like the rest of the village) had ceased to be grey some years back; its boards weathered white by the wind and the salty air. Will wondered if he should paint it, but the expense and hassle seemed a bit much for accuracy in a title, and Will had learned long ago that old names can still be true, despite appearances. More true, even.

He replaced what boards were rotted with age and wet with strong boards and silver nails, specks of protection that twinkled as he hammered them into place. He did repaint the fences, but that more to do with the house’s role as a landmark and his own new role as its caretaker.

The locals didn’t appear surprised that Will was now the one filling orders at the market or clearing the front gate of fallen branches. Whatever tale Captain Toms had told before his death (or an event close enough to that for regular people’s understanding) meant that Will was merely “that sweet boy who was putting the old Grey House back to rights”, and as much of a fixture of the village as if he’d lived there all along.

He was overwhelmingly polite and kind and smiled at the old ladies who clucked at him and still call him a boy though he was already a decade past his thirtieth birthday. Apparently he would forever be thought of as out of time with his body one way or the other. If any remembered him as the quiet, polite boy who had visited with some English schoolchildren, relations of the captain’s friend Professor Lyon, they didn’t mention it.

After the outside of the house was hale and whole, Will concerned himself with the rooms. He spent long afternoons sweeping from attic to cellar, repairing weak floorboards (though leaving the contents of the attic undisturbed with no one the wiser) and wobbly banisters, stained tiling and cracked pipes.

He also searched out spots of rot and damp in the shelves, set aside books that needed new binding (he would write to Max for some advice, the art of book repair being his newest hobby) and made sure each old painting’s frame held true.

When the weather was fine, he threw open all the windows (now gleaming with fresh panes of glass) so that the wind swept through the place, filling each room with the clean wild smell of the sea. He knew the Captain would have approved.

Childhood memories sat side by side the ones he was making, the clatter of rain on the roof not unlike the sound of Jane and her brothers racing down the stairs, a walk to the market overlaid by a more frantic run down those same lanes to the harbour.

The couple that ran the market feared Will was lonely, so one day they offered up a puppy from their newest litter. She was red and gold, a tumble of tawny curls. Will named her Ruth and her flopping scamper was his permanent shadow on walks through the village.

Some of the younger women in the village wondered if he was hiding away from some scandal or nursing a broken heart—this handsome young man with no wife or nearby family—but those older or wiser simply left him alone to his own devices.

And he wasn’t truly alone, Will often received calls and letters from his family, and with so many rooms it wasn’t unheard of for a sibling or two to stop by on a visit—once Stephen brought his huge brood of laughing children for a week at the seaside and Will thought his face would split for smiling.

He still wasn’t truly sure why the Captain had given him ownership of the Grey House, whether Captain Toms was as removed from this Time as Merriman or would return one day, if there was a purpose to his being here in this Place that was simply unknown to him. He knew there was no use to worrying about it and besides, there were more useful things to occupy his attention, like the old shingles in the room that could use replacing and the replanting of flowers along the path.

Mary, on her last visit, had told him he just simply had to plant red carnations, but the memory of bleached white and vibrant red still put him uneasily in mind of a ribbon-wrapped skull, so he chose yellow instead.

They were coming along nicely now, thriving in the pale spring sunshine as Will tamed the bushes that grew next to them. Pruning was not an activity for the inattentive, he had too many scratches and scars to prove it, so most of his focus was on his shears and twine when he noticed a women making her way up the path. Tourists often came by when the weather was warm, wanting to see the Grey House up close and check off another stop on their tour of the touted historical buildings of Tressiwick. He was amenable, but all too frequently played up being the quiet local gardener and went unnoticed. He stood, taking a moment to push his hair out of his face before he went on to the next bush.

“Will? Will Stanton?”

There was enough shiver in her voice that Will look up startled, unsure how this stranger would know him. Then something about the tilt of her smile brought him back to another springtime in this place, another day in this yard. He could see the same happening to her.

“Hello, Jane Drew,” he said, and he thought his face would split from smiling. He didn’t know if this meeting was the reason why he had been sent to Tressiwick, but as Ruth pranced around Jane’s feet and the yard filled with barking and laughter, Will thought it could be reason enough.

*Note: Will names the dog Ruth (much as Captain Tom's dog was named Rufus) for the color, Ruth being a Cornish name for "red-haired" much as Rufus is an English one.

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Fic: Tesla Gibson 13 (Avengers, Steve and Tony, gen)

flyakate — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 03:01:59 GMT

Title: Tesla Gibson 13 (A03)
Summary: Steve was three steps into the kitchen, debating hot chocolate versus raiding the fridge, when he realized that he wasn't the only one up, there were voices coming from down the hall in the living room.
Fandom: Avengers
Rating: G
Warnings: (highlight to read) implied alcohol abuse/alcoholism, mentions of verbal abuse from family members
Notes: I was thinking about there are the families you are born into and the families you choose. Then I wondered how Tony and Steve might feel about those ideas.

***

Steve wouldn’t have even noticed except that night, he happened to be up late reading and had gotten hungry. He took the stairs (seemed silly to use the elevator when it was only one floor down) to what had become unofficially the common kitchen.

Even though everyone’s apartment was outfitted for cooking, more often than not whoever happened to be home from a mission (Clint and Natasha) or back on the planet (Thor) or free from the lab (Bruce and Tony) or hungry (always Steve) would get together and eat. It was nice, reminded Steve of cooking up eggs with Bucky in their apartment or sitting around the fire sharing rations with the Howling Commandos. It was pretty late, felt to be around 2 or maybe even 3, Steve also knew that if he didn’t get to the leftovers from dinner now, they’d be gone by breakfast, the downside of living with a group of people with crazy schedules and healthy appetites.

Over the past few months, Steve had been working his way through a list of books, both fiction and non-fiction, that he’d missed while in the ice. It was a slightly crazy collection, built from Google searches vetted by JARVIS and recommendations from Bruce (apparently getting lost in a book had been calming while on the run). His current find was all about domestic policy during the 1960s, so most of Steve’s attention was still wrestling with what would make a person so full of hate against another person, why something as simple as wanting to attend school could be an act of rebellion. He was three steps into the kitchen, shifting his focus towards the important decision of hot chocolate versus leftovers when he realized that he wasn’t the only one up, there were voices coming from the down the hall in the living room.

“Sir, if you would like me to contact Miss Potts, I am sure that-”

“Dammit, JARVIS, you’re not my babysitter!” It wasn’t too surprising for Tony to be up, though he hadn’t been at dinner, Steve couldn’t remember why (usually neither could Tony, there were always at least three people riding herd on Tony’s schedule) and Steve would have thought he’d be down in the lab if anywhere.

“Indeed,” JARVIS replied. Steve wasn’t sure how a computer program could sound pissy, but JARVIS did. “Your current behavior is simply leading me to deduce-”

“You’ve been watching too much Sherlock Holmes, JARVIS, for the last time, leave me the fuck alone!” At the rise in volume, Steve started moving quietly towards the living room. Tony could be sarcastic, but it was rare that he sounded so angry, especially with JARVIS.

“Sir-“

“Stark override, code Tesla Gibson 13,” Tony snapped. Then there was silence, and the uneven rattle of ice and liquid being poured into a glass.

Steve thought of heading back to bed and just leaving Tony alone, he sounded like he wanted to be alone, but only last week, Bruce had said that Tony seemed to be drinking less. Tony’s response had been to say that it was easier to code when the numbers didn’t blur. All jokes aside, it seemed to Steve that Tony had been sticking with it, so it wouldn’t hurt to see if Tony would talk to him.

Steve walked into the room, surprised by how dark it was. The overhead lighting was off, but one of the lamps near the window threw a bright puddle of light across the couch. In other times, this was the room for movie nights or Clint and Thor’s epic video game battles. (Dance Dance Revolution was now forbidden in the Tower until the floor could be reinforced.) At the edge of lamp’s light, Steve could see Tony wedged in the far corner of the couch. He watched as Tony raised a glass to his mouth, the slow shift in his throat as he swallowed.

“Tony,” Steve began, but Tony cut him off.

“Shit, Cap, warn a guy before you loom out of the shadows, huh? Last guy who surprised me at night ended up with a face full of suit, if you know what I mean.”

But Tony hadn’t jumped and his voice was still even. He’d noticed Steve come in, just as Steve thought he had. When Steve didn’t say anything, Tony kept talking. The anger in Tony’s voice that he’d had while talking to JARVIS was still there, but a layer of sarcasm slid in as well.

“You’re up late, or early, guess it depends on whether you call this Friday or Saturday. Thought all Boy Scouts needed plenty of shut-eye. Needed some warm milk?”

Steve shrugged.

“Was reading and didn’t realize how late it was. Can I sit?”

The ice rattled a little as Tony shifted his grip on his glass.

“You’d think with a place this big I could find a spot to myself.”

Steve felt the sting of the words and could hear the hint loud and clear, but he wasn’t biting.

“Figure you’d pick a different floor if you didn’t want to be bothered.”

There was a pause, and Tony sighed.

“Fair enough. Take a load off.”

Steve settled onto the couch, close enough he could see how tightly Tony was holding himself, how his fingers were white around the glass. Tony was wearing a tuxedo; Steve could see the messy edges of an untied bowtie and the glint of cufflinks at his wrists. It was what Steve thought of as Tony’s real uniform, more constraining than his armor could ever be.

“Fancy duds,” Steve offered.

“Only the best,” Tony said with what was supposed to be a laugh. “Pretty sure this tie cost more than most people at tonight’s benefit make in a month.”

Having to go to one of the fancy Stark events didn’t really explain the alcohol, Steve thought. Tony had been to three dinners and four talks in the past two weeks without incident. Still, Tony was the kind of guy who clammed up when you asked him what was wrong. Better to come at it sideways.

“Food any good?” Steve asked, knowing it would make Tony smile.

“Thinking with your stomach again, why am I not surprised. Nothing as good as whatever you guys made tonight. Who cooked?”

“Bruce again. He’s on a Thai kick.” Tony made a humming noise of interest. “There’s leftovers in the fridge if you want some.”

“Maybe in a bit.” A clink as more liquid disappeared. “Eating doesn’t sound quite so awful anymore, but not yet, I think.” A smirk. “Though I guess it would get JARVIS off my back.”

Steve shot a glance at the ceiling, a habit that he hadn’t really kicked.

“Is he giving you the silent treatment?”

“Er, sort of.” Tony still sounded annoyed, but now he also sounded embarrassed. “I… you know how you can put a computer into sleep mode instead of just shutting it down?”

Steve stared at Tony in surprise.

“You made JARVIS take a nap?”

“More like a time-out. He was pissing me off.”

Steve paused, then offered, “I heard him asking you if he should call Pepper.”

Tony sighed, bigger this time.

“Shit, hoped you hadn’t heard that. JARVIS worries, and he knows that talking to Pepper can… help sometimes when something like this happens.”

Aha, Steve thought. Sideways worked.

“This?” he asked carefully.

For a minute he thought it wouldn’t work, but then Tony almost… deflated, his shoulders coming down, spine uncurling back into the cushion.

“Were you close with your family, Steve?”

Steve almost told Tony not to change the subject when he realized that he wasn’t, so instead he said, “well, my parents both died when I was young, so I grew up in…”

“An orphanage, that’s right, I read the file. Never mind.”

Steve shook his head a little.

“Yeah, I grew up in a boys’ home, but I had other family. An aunt and uncle, some cousins, lived in the Bronx. I think some of my dad’s brothers were up in Albany.”

Tony looked at him.

“I would have thought they’d take you in after your parents died. You know, family sticks together, all that romantic crap,” and the edge in Tony’s voice was icy and razor sharp and Steve thought, oh, there it is.

“My dad wasn’t too close with his brothers. Something about them not thinking Mom was good enough to marry him, I never got the full story. And Mom’s sister… wasn’t very nice.” Steve had a memory of a tall woman with a steely sweet smile, fingers gripping hard into Steve’s shoulder and telling him art isn’t much of a living, but I suppose there’s not much better that could come from a Rogers. He swallowed. “When my mother died, my aunt sent a letter saying she didn’t have room. And… some other things. A boys’ home seemed better.”

“Well, shit.” Tony said. “That sucks, Steve.”

“If I hadn’t gone there, I wouldn’t have met my best friend in the world,” Steve said, throat going tight like it always did when he even thought about Bucky. “And I might not have met Dr. Erksine, and then you’d been sitting here drinking all by yourself.”

Tony huffed a laugh.

“I’d always heard that your family was supposed to be there for you; thought it was just me where that wasn’t the case.” Tony said, and took a deep breath. “My dad has some cousins who were in town on business—they’re in finance, always thought that an engineer was only a mechanic that knew how to do math—and they crashed the party tonight. A few of them had some choice remarks about how Stark Industries was doing an excellent job of making money off of war or peace, whichever was more profitable at the time. That my dad would be proud that I was so… flexible with my marketing abilities.”

“Aw, Tony, that’s a load of…” Steve began, but Tony raised a hand to stop him.

“Their firm took a bit hit a few years back when I went from the Merchant of Death to whatever the hell I am now. The Merchant of Peace? Not quite as catchy. So I understand that they’re hurting, and that Howard might be pissed that I’m not making things go boom as much anymore but fuck ‘em, right? Who needs family?”

Tony slammed his glass down and made a move to get up, but Steve shot out a hand, holding him in place. Tony glared at him.

“Let go, Cap.”

“Not before I tell you something. Well, two things. The first is that while I didn’t know your dad very well, I think he would be proud of the things you’ve done.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“That’s a messy conversation I’d rather not tackle tonight, but okay. What’s the second thing?”

Steve smiled a bit.

“The second thing is that sometimes you find family that you weren’t born into having. Bucky and I might not have been related, but he was pretty much my brother since I was twelve years old. And while I haven’t know the team very long, I’d say that when you depend on people to keep you alive, that’s another kind of family.”

Tony wrinkled his nose, but Steve could see that the tension leave him.

“That’s pretty damn sappy, Steve.”

Steve shrugged.

“Doesn’t make it not true.” Then he stood and said with what he hoped was enough casualness, “I was going to get some of the leftovers before Thor raided the fridge. Want to join me?”

Tony sat for a moment longer, then rolled to his feet.

“I know where Clint keeps his stash of Oreos too. You can’t have a midnight feast without Oreos!”

“Can you at least wake JARVIS up first? He was only looking out for you.”

“Don’t you dare make me feel bad about a computer program! Aw, come on, Steve,” and Tony trailed behind Steve into the kitchen. “Don’t give me that face! Fine, if it makes you happy, I will wake up my computer program and apologize. Hey, if we’re a family, does that make you the oldest older brother ever? Or maybe you’re Grandpa? Ow! Was that a chopstick? I’ve changed my mind. Younger brother, definitely annoying younger brother.”

From the kitchen, the voices continued to rise and fall, while back on the coffee table, the remains of Tony’s drink warmed and melted in its glass.

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Fic: the past is prologue (Ocean at the End of the Lane, gen)

flyakate — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 02:39:31 GMT

Title: the past is prologue
Summary: Ginny Hempstock had said it was only the three of them. But, before, there had been more. Or, a story of how Ginny had brothers.
Fandom: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Rating: G
Notes: Written for Yuletide 2013 as a gift for shrift , who wanted something from Ginny's perspective about why the men leave. And here we are!

***

For a time almost beyond counting, there were only three people living at the Hempstock Farm: Ginny, her mother and daughter. Of course, to call Lettie her daughter and Old Mrs. Hempstock (as the village, later the town, called her) her mother was both overly simple and not quite a lie. But everyone knows a different truth and the truth that Ginny knew was that for many years it was only three in the old farmhouse on the end of the lane.

Except.

Except for those few and far between years when it wasn’t just three but as high as seven, when Ginny and her brothers lived with her mother and father, in a time more years ago than many in the town would even know to remember.

Hempstock women don’t need fathers in the purest biological sense, say true, yet if a man is your father because he makes you feel safe and protected and loved when you are young and small and growing, then the father of Ginny’s brothers was hers just the same.

Ginny remembered how happy she had been when her father would arrive home from work, how she would race down the stairs to be swept up into his arms. He was such a strong man, but still so careful as he tossed her laughing towards the sky. Hempstock men don’t stay, as a rule, but Ginny is still glad that her father held on long enough for Ginny to grow past the purest needing of him, so that his absence was only a dull ache inside, not the sharp pain that it could have been.

Just as her father left, her brothers drifted too. Her mother had always told her that it was in the nature of a Hempstock man to leave, the same thing that drew Ginny to the ocean and the land gave them dreams of other oceans, other lands. Now, of course, Ginny knew that she could choose to leave the farm, go find those wild lands and waters step in step with her brothers, but that itch that touched their feet never came. Ginny noticed as they look at the edges of the farm as confining rather than comforting, watched them talk about the world beyond as something brighter and more real than anything in sight. Ginny stayed at the farm and watched them go.

Carl left first, though he was nearly the youngest. He was always quickest to try something before his elder brothers, always last to come inside from exploring the unknown. The last Ginny had heard, he had found a steamer bound for Africa and his last postcard had mentioned beauties that would even overshadow the old country. Ginny doubted that last bit, but then when you’ve been away from the farm, the old country probably seems even older and more quaint than ever.

Perhaps because Carl had been so quick to leave, her older (truly oldest) brother David followed him out of town, but where Carl took to the water and found his own ocean, David took to the land, fixing things. Somewhere in the stretch of nothings in the California desert, you might find him with his dependable pickup truck and a smile. If you are lost, he will make you found. If you are wanting, he will make you whole.

John and Thomas, the twins, were born mere moments apart, John’s open-mouthed cry ending in Thomas’ equally outraged wail. Yet that was the first and last time they were so in concert—if John was north, Thomas was south, if John was dark, Thomas was light. So, true to form, after they left with the wandering look of a Hempstock man in their eyes, Thomas had sent letter after letter filled with news and questions and life, while the only news they got of John was when another of his brothers heard from a cousin who heard from another Hempstock out in the world. Ginny had heard that John had a family of girls who could tell your secrets by the slant of your smile, while Thomas had daughters who could dream another’s dreams, fill a stranger’s heads with truth or nonsense. Yet another story was that both men had died, one tragically, the other violently. The versions varied about which ending came to which. Everyone has their own version of the truth.

Peter, the youngest of them all, stayed when Carl left, was a lanky teen when David took to wandering and was nearly a grown man himself when John and Thomas made their way from the farm. Yet, he stayed still as the years passed, as Ginny grew from a girl who dreamed of the truths in the world to a mother who taught those truths to a daughter. Lettie, who was forever in the shadow of her Uncle Peter, small feet stumbling to fit his lengthening stride over the grounds of the farm, from barn to house and back.

In fact, Peter was there for so long that Ginny started to disbelieve the stories of the wandering Hempstock men and think that maybe this time, one would stay. They would be four; a nicely even number that made corners stand true and angles lie quiet. Lettie grew older, no longer the silent toddler but now a chattering child, full of smiles and the same sharp knowings that Old Mrs. Hempstock had, filled with a depth and a playfulness that was all her own.

Perhaps Peter had feared to tell her when he began to think of leaving, because unlike her other brothers, there was no warning, no slow change in his manner or new wondering look in his eyes. He was simply gone early one morning.

Ginny had been in the barn, holding court with the warm press of cows as she milked them in methodical order, soothing this one with a quiet word, brushing a hand against another’s back with a fond smile. These cows were the children upon children of the cows from her childhood, and while she loved the farm from boards to branches, the barn was always the one that made her feel the most at home.

Later, she would realize that the slow drawl of a motor past the farmhouse was a taxi carrying Peter away, shrinking their number down to three—the babe, the lady, the crone—but in that moment she was merely concerned with the heat of the cow’s udders in her hands as she slowly and carefully filled a bucket with warm, fresh milk, while keeping an ear listening for cheerful chatter from the farmhouse that meant that Lettie was awake and greeting the day.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/273824.html. people have commented there.

Fic: Secondhand Hope (Avengers/Star Trek Reboot fusion; Steve, gen)

flyakate — Tue, 30 Dec 2014 02:17:19 GMT

Title: Secondhand Hope (A03)
Summary: What (might) happen Captain Steve Rogers, Chief Science Officer Dr. Bruce Banner and Chief Engineer Tony Stark are an away team.
Fandom: a fusion of Star Trek reboot and Avengers. Set post- Star Trek: Into Darkness, so mild spoilers for that.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Written for musesfool on her birthday. I was totally captivated by the USS Avenger casting pic on Tumblr, and so wrote this. It could definitely be something more, you never know.

***

Steve wished, for probably the eighth time, that he had left Tony back up on the ship. It was supposed to be a simple recon mission, a quick look around so that Dr. Banner could get some more readings on the surface and input this unknown planet into the ship's database, but then Barton’s scan had brought up readings that indicated that some kind of man-made structure, something mechanical, was down here, and Tony had practically leapt onto the transporter to join them.

Unfortunately, an excited Chief Stark was remarkably similar to a five-year-old that had been given too much candy.

“So, if there are robots, I get to take one, right, Steve? I’m pretty sure the Prime Directive has nothing on AI and human interaction, so any loose tech is fair game.”

“Stark," Steve replied with what he felt like was remarkable patience, "whatever we find here has to stay here. And need I remind you that it's Captain?"

“Aw, come on, Steve,” Stark complained with a grin. “We were in the same class at the Academy. I scored better than you on the final exam for Command Tactics and Strategy!”

“A final that you were not even slotted to take, seeing as you were completing a degree in Engineering!” Steve snapped back. This was another reason that Stark should stay in Engineering, far from the bridge and therefore usually far from Steve.

"I was bored."

That, Steve thought, seemed to explain most of Tony’s motivation for anything.

“And, you never know,” Tony continued, just as Steve thought he was done. “If you should ever, I don’t know, if you get sucked off the ship like Pike did a couple years back, I can pull a Kirk and you'll be happy I’m prepared. “

“Stark!” Steve stopped short, temper rising, because he’d spoken at Pike’s funeral and only a medical miracle had kept him from having to attend one for Captain Kirk as well. “Why the hell…”

But Tony had kept walking, mind no doubt having moved on, quick fingers tapping on the data pad he was rarely without.

Dr. Banner, always an expert on reading a situation, lagged back to step slightly in front of Steve, an apologetic smile on his face.

“He didn’t mean it, sir. Stark rambles when’s he’s nervous, and frequently those thoughts come out without checking in with his brain.”

“If a little transporter jump made him nervous, it’s amazing he made it out of the Academy,” Steve replied sharply and then felt bad. It wasn’t the doctor’s fault, even if he and Stark were friends.

Dr. Banner winced a little.

“No, not that. It’s just this planet, sir. It looks a great deal like Gaspar II.”

Steve had to think for a moment to call up specifics.

“So our undiscovered country looks like a Federation colony, doctor, you’re still not making your point.”

Banner looked ahead, almost like he wanted to make sure Stark was out of earshot, and then said quietly, “He wouldn’t like me telling you, I had to get him very drunk on some Rigellian ale before he would talk about it, but Stark lived on Gaspar II until he was fourteen.”

Banner paused.

“And?” Steve prompted, already sure he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Shuttle crash. A family friend raised him, but it wasn’t… it was one of the reasons he signed on to the Avenger, I believe, to get away.”

“But,” Steve watched Tony ahead of them, head bent to mutter at his data pad. “Everyone’s heard of the Stark Corporation. I’m pretty sure most of the ships run on Stark warp cores. I figured his family…” What had he thought? That the Stark name had bought Tony a place in the Academy? That his smug grin was the product of overindulgent parents all too willing to backroll their son onto a starship?

“Just him, no other family. He left the company in capable hands, friends of his, then joined Starfleet.”

This new view, of Stark being nearly alone as he was, made Steve’s chest tight. Harder to think that the sarcasm might be born from something darker, closer to the chill riding Steve's own memories.

“So you’re telling me it’s all right for Stark to be an ass?” Steve tried to keep his words angry, but the heat was fading rapidly.

Dr. Banner smiled a bit.

“I’m just saying that sometimes we’re the way we are for a reason,” he said quietly.

Before Steve could think of a response, Stark’s voice rang out from ahead of them, out of sight behind some rocks that, with their luck, would turn into a cave or a pit, or something else nasty.

“Bruce! Steve! You guys gotta see this, my pad is going bananas!”

Steve sighed, checked the setting of his phaser (in his experience, things that got Stark excited also had a tendency to want to cause bodily harm) and looked at Dr. Banner.

“Maybe the atmosphere is messing with his readings?”

The doctor shrugged.

“I would bet it’s robots, but then you’re much more optimistic than I am.”

Steve sighed again.

“Let me check in with Natasha on the bridge and then we’ll see if we can track down our chief engineer before he blows up the planet.”

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/273532.html. people have commented there.

Reboot: Diogenes Boys (Fictional TV Show meme)

flyakate — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 06:41:55 GMT

I was getting nostalgic for all the [Unknown LJ tag] business, so I thought I'd dig my show back out and update it (not to mention that in the LJ/DW shift and with changes in image hosting, all my pictures went away, oops). So here it is once again:

PROMPT: A show about the beginnings of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Can be historically AU if wanted (from [Unknown LJ tag] )
SHOW: The Diogenes Boys
GENRE: Crime procedural/historical drama. I played merry hell with some timeline issues, but it was too good a framing idea to pass up.
FORMAT: Each season has 22 episodes of about 50 minutes each. Rumors had been that CBS has originally wanted it to continue ratings boosts for Criminal Minds and CSI, but deals fell through after the first award-winning season. The show was then picked up for its second season by BBC America as part of the "Crime-Stopping Wednesdays" and paired with Ripper Street and Copper. Hey, a girl can dream...

***
In 1871, an all-consuming inferno raced through the city of Chicago. It burned for two whole days, leaving hundreds dead and over four square miles of the city leveled to the ground. The resulting chaos completely severed all lines of communication between the home office of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the small number of agents that worked out of the Philadelphia office, a city referred to in the agency cypher code as "Diogenes". Together these Pinkerton detectives solve crimes the police are unable (or unwilling) to touch. Will their biggest case yet--infiltrating and breaking the notorious Molly Maguires gang--unify them, or will hidden loyalties and dangerous circumstances drive them fatally apart?

OPENING CREDITS: Gravel Walk - The Rogues

MAIN CAST:

Pinkerton Office:

Captain David Walker (Tom Skerritt)

Walker has been the head of the Philadelphia office for the past eight years. He knows full well the dangers of solving crime on the streets of Philadelphia (and was indeed worked his way up through the ranks of the Philly office himself). He has very high standards for the work his men do, but at the same time allows enough flexibility to get the job done, no questions asked. He personally recruited James into the agency and still has a soft spot for him. It's clear through his interactions with all of his detectives that they hold him in high regard, even going so far as to put themselves in danger to clear Walker's name.

Eliza Bellwood (Melissa Leo)

Eliza has been working for the Philadelphia office for six years now and before that she was a secretary at one of the biggest banks in the city. She not only runs the office itself with a firm hand, her various friendships with secretaries and other office workers around the city often help the detectives get inside information. It's amazing what people will continue to talk about even with a lady present...

James MacParland/"James McKenna"(Glen Hansard)

Born in Ireland, James and his siblings moved to Philadelphia as teenagers. James still lives with his youngest brother in a boarding house by the docks. He has been a Pinkerton agent for the past three years. He takes every case personally, often over-empathizing or having extreme feelings of guilt when a case doesn't end well. Because of his background, he is the best choice to go undercover as 'James McKenna' to expose the many crimes of the Molly Maguires. He constantly worries that his information will place innocents in danger. His loyalties to the Pinkertons seem at odds with his new relationship with Mary Brennan, a member of the Molly Maguires.

Samuel Hamden/Samuel James (John Reardon)

On the surface, two-year agent Sam Hamden seems like an uncomplicated man: likeable and good with a pistol, slow to anger and quick to find answers when a case gets complicated. Yet an uncanny resemblance to one of the agency's most wanted outlaws isn't merely a coincidence--Sam was born Samuel James and is indeed a close cousin to the notorious Jesse James. The main plot arc in the second season deals with Sam's continued struggle between the Pinkertons or his family. Sam gets along with all of the detectives, but he and Jon seem particularly close.

Edward "Ned" Cooper (Eddie Cahill)

Ned grew up in Philadelphia, so he's usually the first to know of the best man to go to for information, be it legal or otherwise. His father is assistant to the mayor and his brother is part of the local police force (though the two are highly competitive and mildly estranged). These contacts come in handy when the agency has a tough case; even more so when Jonathan finds himself on the wrong side of the rest of the unit as well as the law. Ned had been a detective in the Chicago office, and has only recently moved back to Philadelphia two months prior to the pilot episode. It is clear that he left behind many friends in Chicago and is overwhelmed with anxiety and grief about their safety; in Philadelphia, his closest friend is James. Upon meeting Abby, Eliza's cousin, he is clearly attracted to her, and is the only one of the smitten detectives who is successful in taking her to dinner.

Jonathan "Jon" Donnelly (Simon Baker)

Jon has a sharp sense of humor that always seems a bit cruel and doesn't make friends easily, though he and Sam get along pretty well. He appears to have a talent with accents and mimicry and often is the go-to man to play the victim or "innocent" bystander to catch the criminal. Even in times of good humor, there appears to be a bitterness or anger in Jon's interactions. Mid-season, the truth comes out: Jon's "estranged family" is actually a thief-father back in England and Jon himself spent his childhood in a boys' home in Australia after transportation for a few buglaries of his own. This revelation causes some rifts in his relationships with the other detectives, especially with Ned, who he had always been slightly at odds with anyways. Jon has been with the Philadelphia office for a year; he moved from the New York City office for unknown reasons (the thirteenth episode makes it clear: Jon spent a few night in jail after a brawl with coworkers got out of hand).

Abigail Foley (Rachel Weisz)

Abigail is Eliza's cousin and frequently drops in to visit on breaks from her job working as a secretary for the Philadelphia police. Sassy and blunt, she is frequently frustrated by the lack of respect she receives from those at her job and so takes great pride when the Pinkertons solve a case or use any of her information. She has a flirtatious relationship with Ned Cooper and the pair begin courting in a more serious fashion late in the first season.

Peter "Pete" Lawrence (Maxwell Perry Cotton)

Pete is a local newsboy who helps the boys out during the pilot episode. Despite complaints from the others, Sam lets him tag along and he becomes the office's unofficial errand boy. Pete thinks the Pinkertons are amazing and he's always pestering them for stories of all the gun fights he's sure they get up to when he's not around. He hopes to grow up to be Jesse James... or as smart as Sam Hamden. Ironically, those two turn out to be not quite as dissimilar goals as he'd thought.

Molly Maguires:

Alexander Campbell (Liam Neeson)

For many episodes, the most we "see" of Campbell is his voice, usually in overheard conversation with Jack Kehoe. He's an ambiguous figure; it is left vague how much he is involved in the darker activities of the Molly Maguires. Fandom note: In episode 9, a wide shot of his study shots a portrait of him with two young boys, who he tells James are his sons. The boys in the photo are actually Neeson's real-life sons.

Jack "Black Jack" Kehoe (Stephen Rea)

Head of the Molly Maguires, Kehoe is a man both dangerous and charming, generous to those he loves and deadly to his enemies. He sees James's upbringing as a parallel for his own, yet begins to grow suspicious when some of James' behavior doesn't match his stories.

Mary Brennan (Orla Brady)

Mary is a member of the Molly Maguires and a recent widow: her husband Robert was killed in a raid by the police last year. She instantly feels drawn to James upon first meeting him, but knowing the darker side of the work they do, she is wary of getting to close and losing one she loves to violence again. Though unsure of James at the start, his unnecessary kindness towards her in the fifth episode creates a bond which eventually blossoms into a romantic relationship.

RECURRING CAST AND GUEST STARS

Detective Christopher Sullivan (Robert Downey Jr.)

Detective Sullivan visits the Pinkerton agency a few times, especially towards the season finale as he helps them build a case against the Molly Maguires. He is by nature a suspicious man and is quick to accuse Jonathan Donnelly when a series of house robberies are conducted similarly to Jon's former method. He argues with James about the wisdom of his relationship with Mary, yet his later letter of warning to her sheds a new light on his behavior.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Jude Law)

Doyle had met the head of the Pinkerton agency on a cruise to the United States (this is totally historically true!) and travels to Philadelphia to "see how real detective work is done", a way to gain more information for future mystery stories, no doubt. Unfortunately, his over-eagerness has a bad tendency of putting the Pinkerton agents in danger, so he is more humored than accepted upon his infrequent visits. On the show's website, fans can read excerpts from the Sherlock Holmes mysteries based on actual Pinkerton cases.

Jasper Martin (Ed Quinn)

An extremely clever thief who worked his way through the deep pockets and safes of Philadelphia's richest households, Martin's long list of crimes stalled when he could not be found, though then-detective David Walker worked long and hard (and some would argue, obsessively). He is thought to be dead, though Walker has his doubts which are vindicated upon Martin's reappearance halfway through season 1.

Hannah Martin (Paget Brewster)

Jasper's daughter, Hannah grew up hearing stories about her father's many deeds, yet she believes that he has changed his ways. She also seems quite determined to know Sam better, to Jon's annoyance. Her true motivations for her actions is unclear, but either way it will shake up the situation at the agency.

Gareth Davies (Owain Yeoman)

Jon's sole friend in the New York Pinkerton office, Gareth appears during a flashback when Walker and Jon discuss the reason for Jon's abrupt transfer. Simon Baker pushed for Owain's casting in this role, knowing they had worked well together during their time on The Mentalist. While his part is small, it is clear from their interactions that Jon and Gareth have an easygoing friendship, evidenced most clearly by Gareth's support during the brawl that ends Jon's time in New York.

Diane Jones (AJ Cook)

An acquaintance of Ned's from Chicago, though it is unclear as to the closeness of their relationship. She is referenced by name in the third episode, and appears during a flashback of Ned's time in Chicago. Later in the season, it's made more explicit: Diane's brother was robbed and killed in an alley near their home, a crime that Ned investigated. Whether their relationship was simple friendship or more is up for debate; the scene where Ned returns Diane to her house and her father, dressed as a man of some standing, offers money to the Pinkertons for finding his son's killer speaks to a large gap in their social statuses.

Luke MacParland (Damian Lewis)

James' younger brother who lives at the boarding house with him. The two brothers appear to get along, though it's clear that Luke is unaware of much of what James does for as a Pinkerton detective. As the Molly Maguires case continues, Brendan might be headed on a violent path and James' double life might put them both in danger.

Robert "Robbie" Porter (Karl Urban)

James' cousin Robbie hasn't seen James for years, not since they were children back in Ireland. So it's quite a shock when James run into him while undercover at a Molly Maguires' meeting. Will he recognize James and ruin the investigation? Or will James have another ally within the Molly Maguire gang?

This was way too much fun. Coming up, episode guides! FIc requests?

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/273249.html. people have commented there.

Fic: The Duty Ours (H50; Steve/Danny; PG-13)

flyakate — Mon, 27 May 2013 22:25:30 GMT

Title: The Duty Ours (A03)
Summary: Days like this, Danny's not sure how it'll go.
Fandom: Hawaii Five-O
Pairing: Steve/Danny
Rating: PG-13, possible mild trigger WARNING: vauge mention of PTSD-tendencies, anxiety
Notes: As today is Memorial Day, I was thinking about all the amazing servicemen and women who serve our country, and this story materialized. The timeline of this is intentionally vague, as I haven't watched episodes lately at all, but I feel that between the length of time the boys have known each other and the amount of holidays to commemoriate (Memorial Day and Veterans Day at the very least) I feel that this situation would happen frequently for Steve and Danny. Oh, boys. Title is from a quote by Wallace Bruce - "who kept the faith and fought the fight; their glory theirs, the duty ours."

*

Days like this, Danny’s not really sure how it’ll go. Which, he has to admit, is sort of par for the course when it comes to Steve anyway. Before (when he first joined Five-0, before they really became them) he wasn’t sure what he should do, could do, what crazy Williams “gotta fix this” magic he should perform. But finally, Danny figured out that there’s nothing to fix, no magic more holy than simply being himself. Being himself is enough, and the sweet relief of that still staggers him down to the core.

So if Steve wakes at dawn to pound the sand and churn the waves, sweeping away secret memories of unmentioned and unmentionable missions, Danny waits with coffee and malasadas. If it’s that kind of day, there might be dozing on the couch, a team BBQ to wrap Steve in the kind of care and voiceless warmth that only their ohana can provide.

If Steve wakes quiet and disappears to the attic (and the steel filebox of medals and memorials) only to stumble down hours later, red-eyed and tense, Danny gives him his space. Eventually, Steve will unbend, unwind, tongue haltingly parting with stories of friends lost over bitingly sharp shots of tequila and Danny is there to coax details, knowing the kind of grief that goes with losing the partner at your back. Finally, he is there to pour Steve, loose-limbed and calm-eyed, into bed.

Danny is prepared to roll with the punches, be it uncertain silences, calm reflections or (most memorably last year) waking to Steve’s insistent mouth and demanding hands. Shit, the memory of that lengthy morning still makes Danny’s toes curl, basking in Steve’s scorching heat and doing his best to remind him he was whole, safe, alive.

Steve’s restless shifting on the mattress pulls Danny awake, blinking in the grayish glow of early, early morning. Danny doesn’t know how this day will go, one in a lengthy parade of days to celebrate and mourn those who commit to serving their country, whether it will be a day of joy or grief, company or solitude. Still, he leans over to brush a kiss against Steve’s shoulder, murmur a sleepy “morning, babe”, because Steve’s been there for him too, and can hear the unspoken Happy Memorial Day as clear as anything. This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/272913.html. people have commented there.

Fic: Teachers Do It In Red Pen (SGA; John/Rodney; AU; PG)

flyakate — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:10:54 GMT

Title: Teachers Do It in Red Pen
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Summary: "This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays." - Douglas Adams
Rating: PG for mild swearing
Notes:Just when I thought I'd never write in this 'verse (or fandom again), I finally was able to smooth this one out. Multitudes of thanks to winkingstar , who looked at it eons ago and gave me the excellent edit of "this sounds like it's two stories at once" and thus the epic renovation began.

Teachers Do It in Red Pen

*

In second grade, the morning is always filled with the same classroom activities--reading groups and math workbooks and the occasional spelling test (John thinks they should be called misspelling tests, but that's a whole other issue) but the afternoons rotate between PE, Spanish, spending quiet time in Atlantis's library (for a given definition of "quiet"), and art, depending on the day.

Room 12 will be dismissed from Spanish with Alicia down the hall in a little more than half an hour, and John has enough experience with the flow of ending class, lining up and the time it will take for Aiden to walk them back (one of the perks of having a student teacher) to know that he has more than enough time to head to the teacher's lounge for a breather. If Keller's been through recently, there might even be a fairly fresh pot of coffee.

Gathering up a stack of papers--he's learned to use every spare second to keep on top of correcting the quizzes and tests and papers and reports, even seconds devoted to caffeine consumption--and sticking a green pen in his pocket, John digs through the mess on his desk, finally unearths that morning's coffee cup (which reads ATLANTIS ACADEMY: Growing Young Minds in dishwasher-chipped green ink, a motto that always sounded to John like it was one step from the zombie apocalypse) from its new hiding place under his teaching planner, and walks down the almost-quiet hallway to the lounge.

The teacher's lounge at Atlantis Academy actually has two doors: the one that opens (marked ROOM 4A in faded green paint) and the one slightly further down the hall that doesn't (STORAGE used to be written there, but has been painted over in the same pine color that covers all the doors), a holdover from the room's previous use as two separate classrooms. Even though they keep and have kept the door locked since the renovations, there are always a handful of people who try to open it, ineffectually pushing at it until they remember and act like it never happened, even when there are lines of giggling students and even, hypothetically, a tour of prospective parents walking by. Not that this happened to John, or anything, and not that his class from two years ago will ever stop reminding him about it.

John is blissfully working his way through a cup of coffee with too much sugar, trying to stay ahead of the crash sure to come from a long morning running on too little sleep (Rodney's fault as much as his) and too little protein in his breakfast (seeing as Rodney snagged the last Powerbar from the pantry, that's all on him) and mostly tuning out the conversations around him (the caffeine hasn't kicked in), glad to simply sit and be "off" for a moment.

Fortunately, the rest of the crowd in the room (Laura and Joanna each elbow deep in papers, Ronon debating with Teyla about a new form of martial arts he was planning on teaching the middle schoolers) are happy to leave him be.

“Wasn’t it just summer?” Carson remarks to the room as he pushes the door open with an elbow, both hands full with what John figures are lab reports, judging by the glossy plastic covers. “I swear, yesterday I was catching a lovely fish in the river down the way from mother’s and the next thing I know, I’m knee deep in 7th grade papers that are trying to convince me that several laws of motion are actually wrong, thanks ever so, not to mention that certain of the finer points of grammar are apparently optional. Cheers.” This last is to Ronon, who’s kicked a chair out from the table so that Carson can sit.

“Weren’t they supposed to learn grammar in 5th grade?” John tries to sound innocent as he says this, but then can’t stop a grin when Joanna Browning growls something uncomplimentary from further down the table next to a large pile of… spelling tests, if the firm circles of red pen and overall desperately erased and rewritten state of them are any indication.

“I’ve found that it can take many years for a concept to fully be grasped,” says Teyla with her usual calm, and as usual John can only be slightly confident that she’s actually being sarcastic.

“Just like they learned Greek myths in 2nd, right, John?” says Laura Cadman, who still manages to look poised despite a smudge of marker on her cheek and what looks like several pounds worth of reading journals spread before her.

“Hey, I’m pretty sure the whole ‘Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider’ plotline is something the Greeks could have totally gotten behind,” John argues.

“A pity then that Marvel comics doesn’t grade the unit tests,” adds Teyla and remembering the… creative answers he saw last week, John figures it’s smarter to keep his mouth shut.

“Who’s got my kids?” asks Laura as she scribbles into another journal. This question would sound nearly philosophical, if it wasn’t one that John had asked himself out loud or silently about ten times a day. Of course, it prompted John to start hurriedly thinking about where his kids might be (oh, right, Spanish, thank goodness), because what time is it? Hell, what day is it? This was why sitting (even for coffee, beautiful coffee) was dangerous.

“Mine are in Music,” Joanna says and John’s had one of those days, because he can easily hear the unspoken and I hope to never see them again.

“Upper graders are still at lunch,” is Teyla’s offering, with only a pinch of smug to her serenity.

“Well, I don’t have yours until ten after,” Ronon murmurs to Laura and she hurriedly flies up out of her chair and lets loose with some language that is not quite safe for work.

“Shit, I have my kids!” and she gulps the last of her coffee and is out the door.

“Jennifer had lunch duty; she’ll watch them ‘til Laura gets there,” says Carson with a slightly concerned glance at his own watch. “John, shouldn’t you be getting back? The bell is about to go.”

“Aiden knows the drill, he’ll get them settled.” This sounds much more mature than the aw, five more minutes, Mom! that is running through John’s head.

“Weren’t you just telling me yesterday that the class had been particularly rambunctious this week?” asks Teyla with an edge to her voice that makes John continue to feel like a whiny kid.

Actually John had said the kids were being huge pains in the ass, but that’s a pretty close translation, for Teyla.

John slouches, tilts an eyebrow (he’s late to get back now, might as well milk one more minute out of the situation).

“Hey,” he argues, “I thought Ford would enjoy a chance to hone those management skills if he wants to have his own classroom someday.” Although, John thinks, it might be a little cruel to abandon Ford to a classful of post-Spanish adrenalized second graders. Alicia was great (and hits on Lorne like crazy when the Atlantis staff come to John’s softball games, but that’s a whole other story) but runs a tight ship, meaning that kids like Henry and Alec and Stacy are probably busting at the seams by now.

“Maybe I should get back,” John says a little sheepishly and stands.

“If you’re headed that way, I’m sure Laura’d appreciate you dropping off those notebooks first,” Ronon says placidly, tilting his chin towards the tilting pile of reading journals Cadman abandoned in her panic.

“After all, it takes practice to thrive in chaos,” Teyla says and now her eyes are bright with laughter.

“Now that’s just cruel,” protests Carson, but he’s holding back laughter and Teyla looks wickedly mischievous, so John laughs and obligingly scoops up the well-used composition books and figures, hell, Ford will forgive him. Eventually.

Aiden’s glare when John oh-so-innocently wanders back into Room 12 is kind of priceless, but the burst of wildness that the kids got thoroughly derails the social studies lesson that is supposed to follow as well as any possibility of a smooth quiet rotation of science small groups. Not a chance in hell. Instead, John makes the decision on the fly to pull out some of the pipe cleaners he’s been hoarding since last March (kids have literally and metaphorically sticky fingers) and some rulers and it’s “Who Can Build the Longest Ladder using an ABA pattern”.

“This is why they pay me the big bucks,” John says to Aiden with a smirk, though his feet are already moving towards Ricky Daniels, whose hand is raised to wind a purple pipe cleaner in Stacy’s braids. He can hear Aiden mutter, “I hate you,” as he moves away, though at least he sounds like he’s laughing. Thriving in chaos, indeed.

*

It’s Thursday and while John sort of feels like he’s still standing only through luck and a judicious application of caffeine (Jennifer learned long ago that her last unofficial job before leaving the staff office was to make a fresh pot of coffee, bless her), he made it. The last kid has been walked (or in in Henry’s case, more like frog-marched) down to the carpool line or sent off in the direction of afterschool care. John sticks a leaf of lettuce into Tolstoy’s cage (someone has labeled it AWESUM TRTLE when he wasn’t looking, that’s one for the scrapbook) and for one precious moment, all John has to do is stand there.

But there’s something, something he’s supposed to do, his brain keeps catching on a fragment of conversation from this morning (right after snarking at Rodney for grabbing the last Powerbar and before they parted ways towards car and train station with coffee-laced kisses that jolted better than caffeine), something about today, something that he is doing because it is…

“Thursday!” John remembers with a yell.

Chuck, passing by the door with a cart full of laptops, gives John a weird look but hey, that’s not new.

It’s Thursday which means softball practice which means John needs to get his butt out the door and home and to the field in exactly (he checks his watch) negative five minutes ago. Crap.

John tells himself to get a grip, if the guys actually cared if he was on time, he would have been kicked off Halling’s Hotshots (the original name had been Halling’s Hardward Hard Hitters but everyone had vetoed that lengthy amount of alliteration) long ago. Fortunately traffic is working in his favor, for once, and by the time he drags himself back into the car after a two minute stare down with the siren call of the couch in the living room, Lorne and some of the guys are only just warming up.

John sits on a bench in the dugout to lace up his cleats, feeling all those weird muscles that tighten from standing up all day already start to bitch a bit because it’s been a long day and the temperature is dropping along with the sun. He’s digging through the crap in his gym and marveling at whatever it is that makes something as big as a mitt disappear into thin air, because he knows, he knows he put it in there. He is just closing his fingers on his glove and triumphantly pulling it when he hears Lorne call out, “hey, Doc!” and he sees the brilliantly ridiculous orange of Rodney’s fleece out of the corner of his eye and goes to meet him by the bleachers.

“Thought you had class,” John says and then “ooh, coffee” as he snags the thermos for a grateful slurp. Rodney raises an expressive eyebrow at the noise.

“It’s midterms this week and while I now have to grade the mind-numbing pile of essays that my freshman class has come up with in the hopes of passing, I can pawn all the short answer and multiple choices sections off on my TAs. I was thinking you would enjoy a supporter at your weekly display of athletic manliness,” here Rodney raises an expressive eyebrow at the empty bleachers, “but seeing as you appear to only love me for my possession of a warm beverage, I might just leave.”

“I can always tell when you’ve had the intro class,” John says with a laugh as he—only a little bit reluctantly—returns the coffee thermos. “You use way bigger words.”

Rodney rolls his eyes.

“You hit ball. Me watch. Happy now?”

“Exuberant,” John says. He leans over to press a kiss to Rodney’s temple. “If you get too cold, the car keys are in the side pocket of my bag.”

“If I get too cold, you owe me a beer after!” Rodney argues, but John’s already walking back towards the field and pretends not to hear him.

Summer has its perks, Carson does have a point, but fall, fall means new students, new field trips (it’s almost time to take this new batch of kids to the Franklin Institute again, that’ll make Rodney smile), new moments of hilarity and terror and frustration and accomplishment and chaos and calm and finally, it means the warmth of stolen coffee and the sound of Rodney’s outraged shouting from the sideline when John is so clearly, absolutely, undeniably safe at third, is the umpire blind?

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/272769.html. people have commented there.

Fic: The Case of the Limping Doctor (A Study in Emerald; Watson; R)

flyakate — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:53:29 GMT

Somehow, I never posted my Yuletide offering for this year (I was a pinch hit writer because I didn't get my act together in time to go through the regular draw, which is excellent because I probably never would have gotten to write this story and it's made my reading/writing life so interesting, not to mention gave me a great excuse to read Lovecraft over Christmas).

If you've never read A Study in Emerald, it is an amazingly spine-tingling and excellent short story by Neil Gaiman that answers the question: what would happen if the world of Lovecraft and the world of Sherlock Holmes... were one and the same? He has a pdf of the story for free on his website, so first go read that. I'll wait.

I love this story down to its creepy crawly bones. Hope you enjoy it!

Title: The Case of the Limping Doctor (AO3)
Summary: There once was a man named John who was fairly intelligent and respectable and had an honest face. This is (not quite) his story.
Fandom: A Study in Emerald
Rating: R
Warnings (highlight to read): psychological torture and trauma, physical torture, vague and specific references to Lovecraftian insanity. Graphic depictions of violence and self-harm.
Notes: Written for Yuletide 2013 for shadowkeeper to explore how Watson and Holmes meet in this universe.

The Case of the Limping Doctor
*

Years upon years ago, they came from the air. On wings and not-wings, crawling and skittering and slithering across the clouds, even as the wisps of moonlight bled red, they came…

Years upon years ago, they came from the ground, dragged and drained from the waters and mud to slosh and slip across paths and roads, as the land seemed to shrink from them, dim and deaden until only the foulest of plants grow and thrive, they came… and they never ever left.

--written in faded black ink on the inner cover of the journal of J.H. Watson, MD

There once was a man named John who was fairly intelligent and respectable and had an honest face. He died under the hills in Afghanistan and the things that heard his screams had no mouths of their own to repeat them.

That would be the simplest story, and sometimes the simplest story is true. However, the world is anything but simple, and so the story goes like this.

There once was a man named John who was fairly intelligent, yet he was not intelligent enough to stay away from the Army. Medical school had not been hard, simply time-consuming. It was filled with endless lectures about the ease in allowing any incurable illness to simply be alleviated permanently by a visit to one of the Queenkin, and wise men explaining complex diagrams detailing the most convenient methods to “release” a patient that had wandered astray of a shoggoth or Mi-go. John had found himself at loose ends upon graduation and happily enough followed the suggestion of Professor Henry that someone with his steady manner might do well fighting overseas.

(That a “steady manner” was simply another way of suggesting that John’s mind seemed hardy enough to resist madness at the first glimpse of an Old One did not occur to him until much later, a realization that caused John to break into an unending bout of horrified laughter, great gasps of it until he cried, bolstered by the welcome weight of Sherlock’s hand on his shoulder.)

John was respectable; though in London society, that was simply well-known shorthand for being someone who kept his head to the ground, inspired no intense feelings in the positive or negative, and generally emulated an automaton as closely as possible. He was never sought out by his fellow physicians, nor specifically avoided. These characteristics usually guaranteed safety, for the most part. John’s family followed these traits to the letter, though they had vanished into the many streets of London long before John’s discharge and return. He hoped that they simply moved and are living healthily if not happily, though he feared (knew) that one can respectable and safe up until the moment that an Old One’s interest is piqued. He’d seen too many abandoned rooms and abandoned bodies to think otherwise.

He supposed he had an honest face and could dimly remember seeing its calm and relatively innocent gaze reflecting back from looking glass and shined metal. That honesty drew men to him, his commanders claimed, and in turn the Army promoted him, pushed him up the ranks with little fanfare and littler reward until he led a squad of fifty into the hills, scurrying and clawing into the mountains.

Their mission began in following orders to search the caves, but it ended with a fierce and unnatural enemy finding them. John knew they were an enemy, because they fought back before provoked, quickly and violently, and John knew they were unnatural, because no wound dealt by a man left such marks.

In their squad of fifty, only three returned back to look upon the bloody sun again. Cadet Nolan died moments later, still dragging fingers through his eyes long since blinded and torn, screaming that he didn’t want to look, sir, please don’t make him.

Captain Ross seemed remarkably hale and whole in body, but after the polite and professional debrief, he calmly saluted his superiors, slipped a Bowie knife into his pocket and proceeded to the officers’ mess, where he began carving whole slices of his skin off and offering them to the men at his table with all manner of solicitude until he fainted from blood loss.

Major John Hamish Watson was missing in action after two days, presumed dead after ten. On the thirty-seventh day, a gaunt, wild-eyed skeleton crawled out of tunnel 221B, his right leg covered in weeping sores and small incisions that (the men whispered later) looked like mouths wide open in a scream.

The man who had been John could not walk unaided, his leg would not bear his weight and it took five men to gather and bear him to the medical tent. Another three had to tie him down as the doctors debated whether it would just be kinder to let him die.

Mike Stamford, a medic newly arrived in country, argued most ardently for Waton’s care. Without his support, John is sure that he would have been given an overdose of morphine and a posthumous medal. Instead, he was left crippled and scarred, shaken in mind and soul, but alive, at least in the conventional medical sense.

It took them three weeks to stop him from screaming every moment he closed his eyes and when the drugs ceased their function they shook their heads, offered suggestions for quiet and rest and large amounts of alcohol and packed their problematic patient back to London.

There once was a man named John and he was fairly intelligent—though he could barely keep ahead of the way his thoughts raced and gibbered and rambled—and respectable—though once he mentioned that he had been in the Army, people melted away and refused his gaze, fearing such a stark example of Old One exposure—and he had an honest face—though the frighteningly ancient eyes that glared back in the mirror no longer seemed his own. Much of him died under the hills of Afghanistan and he always woke with a scream echoing his rooms and another locked in his throat, shivering hard against the vision of the mouthless yet ravenous things that had slithered and slipped through the dirt.

The first boarding house gave way to another and yet another as more complained of the noises, the yells. The pity gave way to frustration and avoidance and finally John sat huddled against a moldering alley wall near the St. Giles Rookery wondering what walked here that he could not see, what evil slept without dreaming beneath the cobblestones. That was where Stamford (about business more seditious than licentious) found him, recognizing the Major he’d known in the lost man on the cobbles.

The man who died under the hills went with the man who saved him deep into the basements of the university. There, they met a man who was sharply intelligent, not very respectable at all, and who had a face that said being honest wasn’t the same as being kind. He’d had many names, he said, but the first was Sherlock Holmes.

The limping doctor smiled.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/272617.html. people have commented there.

Fic: Stephen's List (The Brothers Bloom, gen)

flyakate — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 07:29:04 GMT

Title: Stephen's List (also on AO3)
Summary: Sometimes Stephen needs a reminder of things he really shouldn't do. Here are 20 of them. Set pre-movie.
Fandom: The Brothers Bloom
Characters: references of Stephen, Bloom and Bang Bang
Rating: gen
Notes: I started this during Yuletide, and finally finished it this evening. I posted it to NYR, because there should be more amusing thoughts about Stephen's shenanigans. In another life with more time, i would love to write the snippets or stories that go with each of these reasons. Who knows, maybe I will.

1. Stephen is not allowed to stage a job in any country whose name starts with the letters A, L, F, P or M (yes, even Monaco), especially if any should border the Arabian Sea.

2. Stephen is not allowed to mention the following, for any reason: Moldova, Lithuanian convents, and the midnight train from Stockholm to Uppsala.

3. Under no circumstances should any diversion be attempted with a porcupine, rubbing alcohol, or a rubber duck.

4. A diversion should definitely not be attempted with all of these objects simultaneously.

5. Especially not in Moldova. People have died that way.

6. Bang Bang can, in a pinch, be a Romantic Lure. This does mean she enjoys it.

7. Bloom can only be a Romantic Lure in an emergency situation.

8. “Because Stephen thinks it would be good for him” does not qualify as an emergency situation.

9. In addition, Stephen may not borrow, steal or destroy Bloom’s passport, suitcase, clothing, shoes, reading material or automobile using the argument “it would be good for him”.

10. Any backup plans require the agreement of two out of three job members before proceeding.

11. Stephen does not “count” as two team members.

12. Not even if he is masquerading as twins.

13. No matter how much he begs, Stephen is never, ever allowed to bluff at a card game run, overseen, or at all tangentially connected to an organized crime operation—Bloom likes having all his fingers, thanks so much.

14. Stephen is not allowed to impersonate a member of an organized crime operation for the purpose of entering a card game that is run, overseen, or at all tangentially connected to an organized crime operation.

15. Stephen may not create false identities using names from the following: any Ian Fleming novel, any Godfather movie, any film starring John Wayne, or any variation of Star Trek, yes, even if Jean Luc Picard would look fantastic on a Nevada drivers license.

16. Stephen may not use a plan if he laughs for more than two minutes straight while thinking about it.

17. Stephen is well aware he does not speak the following languages: Farsi, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and Tagalog. Therefore, he is not allowed to pass himself off as a native speaker of those languages.

18. Stephen must seek permission before booking transportation on any of the following: camels, goats, reindeer-drawn sleds, and late 90s Volkswagons.

19. Stephen may not, under any circumstances, impersonate either a lawyer or a member of the navy. It doesn’t ends well.

20. Stephen may not, ever, perform a con that endangers his own life.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/272286.html. people have commented there.

Thinking and thoughts

flyakate — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 09:07:47 GMT

About a million years ago, I had an idea for an SGA/Firefly fusion. And wrote up a whole rambly piece about what that would look like... and did nothing else. But there's still some... meat there, some energy that I could try to mine out.

So I'm posting it, in the hopes that it will continue to rocktumble (a term I stole from copperbadge
, I fear, but totally accurate, a rolling and rocking and refining of a concept from dross to gold) and maybe even make somethign ficcish.

As an alternate fusion history, I think it's pretty awesome.

So I give you the backstory for the not!story (which I had tentatively called "Ending the Alphabet" after the song by the Mountain Goats. Any thoughts (or pushes towards actual story-building) highly encouraged.

Ending the Alphabet

{C}{C}{C} {C} {C}

The Alliance was big, bold and strong in the kind of way that meant they took no prisoners in the most literal sense. Though, to be perfectly accurate, Ronon had been a prisoner, taken from his planet after an Alliance squadron firebombed the towns surrounding under the auspices of “suspicious activity”. He was probably written up on some passenger manifest as ‘refugee’ if he appeared anywhere at all, but they doubted it. The Alliance was very good at insuring that some records were just never kept.

Soon after U-Day, with the Independents dead, dying and lying in wait on dirty Rim worlds that had never been worth the coin to terraform them, the Alliance was already looking further, deeper, searching for a means to stretch their control wider and stronger. Those in power have the money to remain so, and it was no surprise that, just as those planets firmly in the bounty of the Core had prestigious hospitals with the most exalted of care, they also possessed laboratories and think tanks of the most brilliant minds money and influence could buy.

A chance to reach new galaxies, even further than the most powerful cruiser could hope to see on its screen. That was the goal. Of course, the fact that they had made it this far away from Earth-that-Was meant that any kind of astrophysical methods from that era was mere child’s play, textbooks that wealthy families read to their children at bedtime to laugh at the simplistic wonder at the way the world worked. Still, history has a tendency to repeat itself, and so the old knowledge was still valuable, if spun with the correct degree. Rodney McKay, brusque though he was, had the ability to market himself that successfully.

There was a theory a doctor had, one of the researchers in a lab on Osiris. That if the genetic makeup of a person could be manipulated to the right level, certain properties and… abilities would become available. A myth from long ago, ancient even by the standards of Earth-that-Was history, but still worth pursuing, at least as long as the credits continued to accumulate and be put forth.

Rodney and his team—though he was always quick to point out that he was in charge, thank you—concocted a synthetic blend of chemicals and spliced gene that, when injected, could possibly blend and form a new kind of code, with power enough to reach beyond the Outer Rim, beyond the wildest imaginings, to the places where dreams only whispered at.

It was said to be a triumph, in the sense that it didn’t kill the entire population of test subjects it was administered to. While Rodney had always thought it would begin with animals and eventually (safely) become part of a human trial, a glimpse at coded memos and reports not meant for his eyes showed him differently.

That was bad enough. Worse still was the data about a different batch of subjects, also human, who already had the necessary gene. These people were luckier and worse off than the ‘gene therapy’ subjects, if not only because their existence was so secret as to be never known in the first place.

By the time Rodney had learned of them (collectively known as Group ATA), their numbers had dwindled to two, both men. Others had died through the testing and analysis process, not to mention those who had simply disappeared after their “disagreement” with the Alliance’s goals for the project (though to outright connect this project with the Alliance is too literal; the levels of red tape and cover companies would be enough to make anyone’s head spin).

ATA M Beta and ATA M Delta. Though at times Rodney still could feel the memory of sitting in a lecture hall learning about the Ethics of Human Study for the Greater Good, another part of him couldn’t forget the pictures attached to the ATA case files. The countless other he dug up on the injection subjects (called Project Metamorphosis, for great dramatic irony, Rodney felt).

Eight key cards, a handful of false papers and a rented skimmer later, Rodney and ATA Beta and Delta were on their way to nowhere. It was only days later that Rodney finally learned their names: John Shepherd. Aidan Ford.

Unfortunately, Rodney’s influence and money could only stretch so far and the Alliance, no matter under whose title came after them, fierce sirens and shadowy almost-not-seen operatives.

They buried Ford and week and a half before they found Ronon. Teyla was two months later. By the time they'd found a fast, unnoticeable ship and named it for an Earth-that-was myth, they were already a crew. With Atlantis, they'd found a home and a chance to keep it and themselves as far from the Alliance as they could.

</div>

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/272069.html. people have commented there.

Yuletide Recs (and at long last a posting!)

flyakate — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:18:15 GMT

Apparently my fandomness is merely yearly, as the last time I posted was a few days/weeks later than now. Still, it is time for the Yuletide rec list! I totally failed at signing up to write a fic, but I made it onto the pinch hit list and wrote an awesome twisty funky little story that I will no doubt tell you about later. For now, on to the reccomendations!

Lily Remembering by Anonymous for puella_nerdii
The Giver - Lois Lowry

Lily's POV after Jonas leaves. All sorts of ache and subdued touches of what is happening in the community under the surface.

My Soul to Keep by Anonymous for Gryph
The Stand - Stephen King

Maine, before. I love this book to pieces and it was great to visit with these characters years before the story starts. Great and totally in canon with the tone of the book.

We Live. by Anonymous for carmilla
V for Vendetta (2005)

A great post-canon story that helps figure out what they might do after.

Curtain Call by Anonymous for kiitos
Dead Poets Society (1989)

Oh, Neil. I love this universe it all its sharp corners.

Apo Koinou by Anonymous for kiitos
Dead Poets Society (1989)

The boys post-canon. If this movie continued, I think this happened.

O Terra, Addio by Anonymous for marina
Elementary (TV)

Amazingly believable Sherlock and some lovely plausible Sherlock/Irene backstory

You Belong With Her by Anonymous for listedheart
You Belong With Me (song)

I never really thought about what would happen after the song ends. I think this did.

Living by Anonymous for jonesandashes
Shawshank Redemption - All Media Types

Red/Andy have the best epic bromance.

"Worked okay so far?" by Anonymous for oxymora (oxymora)
Hobbes and Bacon

OMG, I didn't know of the concept but I love it! All the fics for this category are amazing, go read them.

Pray your gods by Anonymous for shadowkeeper
A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

The source is an amazingly dark and twisted short story and as a Holmes fan from way back, I always check out these every Yuletide. Nice glimpse of the "good" guys and "bad" guys exist in this world.

Applied Heresy by Anonymous for magisterequitem
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

Backstory for Lyra's parents. Lovely wordbuilding and true to the canon.

A Great and Gruesome Height by Anonymous for pockey_slash
Iowa - Dar Williams (Song), Dar Williams Songs

This story encapsulates the joy and yearning of this song perfectly. And the crossover (which I won't spoil for you) is perfect.

Four Ways Marcella Could Have Ended Up Working For Martin and One Way She Did by Anonymous for intrikate88
Grosse Point Blank (1997)

Hahaha, love this, makes me want to watch this movie so bad.

Fire and Water and the Car That Went Zoom by Anonymous for sotto_voice (Lexie)
Hellboy (Movies)

Awww, a great history for Liz and Red and Abe, so great. I particularly love the bashful hope that this version of Red has.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/271837.html. people have commented there.

Milliways Signal Boost, among other things.

flyakate — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:50:15 GMT

Hiyo, though I'm sure if you're on my reading list you already know this, but Milliways is making the shift from LJ to Dreamwidth, so if you play you should... know that. In more eloquent words:

For anyone who plays or used to play at milliways_bar and hasn't been following the back room lately: Milliways is moving to Dreamwidth!

They're using the opportunity to free up many old and retired characters for play, as well as to preserve as much of Milliways' history on Dreamwidth as possible against the possibility of LJ going kersplut.

To decide what will happen to your character, help back up the game to Dreamwidth, and to see how you'll retain control over all your content, head on over here.

I will have to write a proper post soon, but at the moment I am wallowing in schoolwork and reading applications (oh, three jobs, how I wish I could ~~quit you~~ have you take less time).

Hope all is well with everyone!

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/271529.html. people have commented there.

United States of Pop (amusingly, I think River would appreciate these)

flyakate — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:39:17 GMT

So if you've never seen the DJ Earworm mashups of the Top 25 Pop Hits (according to Billboard), they're pretty awesome.

Compiling them here for ease of finding.

United States of Pop 2008: Viva La Pop

United States of Pop 2009: Blame it on the Pop

United States of Pop 2010: Don't Stop the Pop

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/271279.html. people have commented there.

flyakate — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:17:32 GMT

Word on the street is that it's almost Remix season, which means it's time to start writing things to qualify in various fandoms. Pulling from last years list, does anyone have a prompt for me in the following fandoms? A prompt could be a paring, a phrase, a word! Let loose, guys!

Criminal Minds
due South
Firefly
Hawaii Five-O (2010)
Inception
NCIS
NCIS: Los Angeles
Sherlock Holmes (2009) (includes the bookverse)
Sherlock BBC
White Collar
X-Men (Movieverse)

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/270905.html. people have commented there.

Criminal Minds Season 6 premiere ramblings (benefit of cleaning comp files)

flyakate — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:03:22 GMT

Hahahaha, so I was tidying my computer after updating all my fic links from livejournal to dreamwidth or mostly AOO3 links just to be safe and in the process checking to see what fics I had in the purgatory of WIP and what were actually complete files.

And I came across a doc of rambling about the season premiere... of season 6 of Criminal Minds (ie the one with Tim Curry being creepy)

So while I realize we are totally a season and a half ahead of this, posting it because it's hilariously out of date but still makes me laugh.

Enjoy? Unedited, but still, hilarious.

---

Previously on criminal minds… eric close was an idiot.

I do not buy the plot line that he was unaware. Background checks, anyone?

Aha, we lost morgan… literally.

Way to not follow the profile, I mean, seriously. Good job, Eric Close.

Weird Americana over saturation… supposed to be Young time curry, clearly. Ewwww, those teeth are unfortunate.

It’s like one of those locked room stories, Prentiss and Hotch (shippers forever!)… fortunately they are geniuses, and will find Morgan soon. And Kristen the bruised sister.

Dude, why am I so creeped out by the daughter? Ellie comes across as a little too willing in the “omg don’t let him kill me HI HERE’S A GUN” scene.

Oh good, they found him.

Poor broken morgan! She’s going to show fear… if she was actually a normal kid. Most likely she continues to be the weird creepy stepford child that she is.

Maybe she’s just a bad actress. Hard to say.

Ahahahaha, the wtf look on ellie’s face was exactly the same look that I had on my face. It was awesome.

Ok, while I know I’m supposed think he’s going to knife her, I am almost 100 percent sure he’s going to cut her hair instead. It’s only 17 minutes in, after all.

It seems weird that Prentiss just magically appears at the police station. Isn’t there traffic everywhere?

Okay, retro tree angsty scenes is weird.

OMG Ellie is awesome! I was super concerned she had gone all Children of the Corn, although seriously, she’s still freaking me out.

Aha, California has its moments. Best line ever.

Ellie the super creepy kid was always the target. Color me unsurprised.

JJ kicks ass! Oh, but now she has existential angst about her job. How is this different to her newscasting having an influence on the unsub’s behavior. I don’t get the distinction.

“I’m not a hostage negotiator.” “You are today.” Cheesy, but awesome.

Tangent: that explains why they moved CSI: NY to Fridays… to parallel Blue Bloods, where Tom Selleck and his family of cops who I thought were supposed to be mildly dodgy but apparently we’ve been promised they’re heroes, no really. Huh. This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/270627.html. people have commented there.

Fic: In the Land of Fire and Dreams (American Gods, Czernobog, PG-13)

flyakate — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 05:29:33 GMT

Title: In the Land of Fire and Dreams
Summary: The more real things get, the more like myths they become. Czernobog through the years, pre-novel.
Fandom: American Gods
Character: Czernobog
Rating: PG-13 for some vaguely mentioned violence, discussion of slaughterhouses and practices therin
Notes: Quote in the summary comes from Rainer W Fassbinder, while the title is taken from American Gods itself. Written for julychildren for Yuletide 2011. She requested additional stories about any of the gods within the novel, and I thought that digging a little deeper into Czernobog and his dualistic nature would be fun. And I got to play around with 2nd person POV, which always makes me feel proud and a wee bit pretentious in a Real Art kind of way. I had a great time writing it! Hope you enjoy it too.

In the Land of Fire and Dreams

On the boat over, your people wail and moan, but the way they whisper to each other in comfort, cling to each other’s hands in hope help you remember the crackle of the wood as it burned in the fire, the sharp tang of feast wine as the cup passed from hand to hand. Praise the light god with good, curse the dark god with bad. The rain when it hits your face tastes as the wine did, powerful and heady. The thunder makes you smile, knowing that soon the skies will clear, become as blue as your eyes. Things will be better soon here in this new land, America.

There is so much joy, you can feel it clinging to your fingertips, pulling tight at your chest and making your face ache with smiles you haven’t made. The voyage is over, the people safe, laughter and song make the very air feel like it is dancing (and with the way the wine is flowing, it probably will be if the others have anything to say about it). Everywhere is life and hope, a sense of possibility here in this new land.

You can hear the children laugh, your people whisper your name with smiles, not tears. A good day.

In what feels like no time at all, years have passed. When you can get yourself to sleep, you wake dreaming of blood. The hope has dried up, the laughter is gone. Your people have little food in the fields, even less on the tables. The children cry, their parents grieve. You mourn for them. With them. For yourself? Yes. Hands that seemed strong now can only clench and twist as hunger continues, the days of feast and festival strength further and further in the past.

Where before there was life, not there only seems to be death. Your people cry out in hunger, calling for help. You take to the fields, helping to slaughter the animals before more people starve. The blood on your hands brings you no comfort, no offering energy. All is dead.

It is hard to stay light in so much dark, alive in so much death. You don’t try.*

The journey west is hard and only holds a faint echo of the hope people had carried on the boat like so much baggage. There are skirmishes and fights as you make your way to the center of the country, and as your people fight and bleed and die in your name (or because of it) you feel strong, mighty. While it doesn’t make the night seem brighter, at least it holds the clouds at bay for a while longer, keeps the shadow and weight from your mind.

Though the wine cups have long ago been sold and traded for coin and food, your people tell stories of you around the fire, and that’s almost enough.

The city is springing up like grass after a rain, Chicago rising in boards and beams high up into the sky. It should feel new and hopeful, it doesn’t for you. The stories are fewer as people leave the past behind. With each death of an elder, the stories get lost, fractured, falsified. The children grow up without knowing your name, your history. The sorrow of it is sharp, but it is a passing grief and there is no point to it. No tears will make it better.

All around you, the air is warm with the smell and sounds of spring, but you carry the memory of too many cold and long winters, too many days of walking the Shambles with blood-stained boots and foul-smelling hands to really feel warm. You feel there was a time when warmth and love, laughter and smiles were all you knew. Something about a cup, wine flowing with praise. A dream, perhaps.

You wonder if the men around you know what you are, can feel the power that used to rise from you like mist after a rain. But as you walk the dirty floor, raise and lower the meat for packaging, no longer smelling the stink of death (did your victories in battle smell sweeter or is that simply the memory?), it seems that you are all the same, all simply working part of this machine of destruction.

Your people used to praise you; later they would curse you. Now, you fear that they have forgotten you. You feel the burn of anger, hot like the flow of blood under your knife. If you don’t think about it, you can pretend that it’s not cows you’re killing, that you’re back on a field in battle, hearing your people call out your name, dedicating lives and deaths to you.

There’s an edge to the air, a heat that reminds you of the fires that used to burn in your name. But those that remembered have long since passed; you can feel your own fragility now. If you knew what would come after, you would long for death. If you could name the feeling that rises instead, you would call it fear and curse yourself a coward. But fear has no place in you, no more than peace does any more. The sky burns orange for four straight days. The fire that they will later call great levels miles of Chicago. You know that the devastation and chaos is not for you, but still you smile and sleep easy for the first night in a long time.

Others pass through, others like you (and enough not that it makes your skin itch) and the sisters stay, making you feel like it’s home. It’s almost enough to make you remember the feel of sun and light, but not always. Still, you’d forgotten what it was like not to feel alone, be alone. And that is a good thing.

Around you the world changes, shifts. The Shambles is torn down, the meatpacking plants slowly dismantled until only the bare bones of rails and bridges that carried the cattle cars arc like a ghostly skeleton e against the sky as the only reminder. You have long felt forgotten, but it is the first time you feel unnecessary.

You wonder what color your eyes are now. You don’t look.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/270563.html. people have commented there.

Loving all the things (random squee)

flyakate — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:01:31 GMT

The nice thing about the beginning of a new year is that there is always some change in energy, a feeling that bygones should go by, mistakes forgiven, and that all the things that need to be accomplished, can. Kind of fun.

Yuletide Excitement:

This year I got to write in American Gods and since one of the requests was more about any of the gods we meet, I wrote: In the Land of Fire and Dreams, which was lots of fun to write not only because of my love of the slightly pretentious second person narrative voice but also because I got to poke around and learn lots of random things about early Slavic religion (granted, it was on Wikipedia and similar, so I could be wrong on... all of it). And I got to reference the Great Chicago Fire, which makes my little Diogenes Boys heart happy.

I received but for the endless ifs by kittu9, which is an amazing story of Bloom and Penelope post-The Brothers Bloom, where they are awkward and real and full of adorableness with each other in a lovely jagged and true kind of way. And there is house renovation! HGTV would get a total kick out of reno-ing with Bloom and Penelope!

And now, some amazing Yuletide recs!

* The Hunt for Man-Yu-El (Aladdin) by cimorene
At sunset on the third day since the second water purifier had stopped, the city of Agrabah limped along in a state of controlled chaos.

The royal fountains and pools were empty; the use of water for bathing and watering of plants was strictly limited, which put the nobles out of temper, greatly gratified the smallest children at bedtime, and added a whole new level of pungency to the bazaar. The bakers in the streets sold a drastically reduced selection at astronomical prices; at the back gates of the palace, a line of hungry beggars stretched and snaked out into the city, and the Queen's cooks fed them on baked vegetable balls and salads, anything but bread; and kebab stalls had sprung into being like goosebumps after a cold wind, hawking roasted lamb so fast that the shepherds were fast becoming the happiest demographic in the city, and the sheep the most worried.

The sheep, and the Queen.

The writer took an amazing probably throw away line from the movie and extrapolated that clearly, Aladdin is set in the apocalyptic future. And goes from there. Adorable and awesome.

* The Man in the Gaberdine Suit (American Gods) by mtgat
Shadow comes home.

A story set post-novel that ends Shadow's story in a great way totally tone perfect to the rest of the universe. Love it.

* Hey Diddle Diddle by tryfanstone (Mary Poppins)

Great. I kind of want to live in a world where this happened.

* The Muppet Show Our Very Special Guest: Alton Brown (Muppet Show, Good Eats RPF) by hhertzof

Alton Brown guest stars on the Muppet Show, the Disney Company has sent Winnie-the-Pooh to check out their new acquisition and chaos ensues.

So more or less business as usual for the Muppets.

* Unreasonable Degrees of Happiness (Clueless, Cher/Josh) by catharsis

Cher and Josh: one year, five years, and ten years later.

I had forgotten how much this was one of my first pairing crushes. This fic totally acknowledges that it doesn't make much sense as a relationship and shows how it actually does and would. Too cute. (Also, mental image of young Paul Rudd? ROWR.)

* That's How We Rolls, Muchachos (Sahara) by alyse

Rudi still writes to his mother once a week and his Aunt Sharon once a month, and it's a testament to the sterling qualities of his current compatriots that not once do they give him shit about it. Of course, he's not entirely sure that his mother and aunt would appreciate his companions' other sterling qualities, like the fact that while they may not give him shit about things, they're more than perfectly capable of landing him in it.

OMG this is hilarious and I must watch this movie again soon. Perfect, perfect, from Sandeker on the phone to Al's hat to... everything.

* He Mourns for the Change that has Come Upon him and his Beloved (Chaos Walking trilogy, Ben/Cillian) by eudamion

The epic love story of Ben Moore and Cillian Boyd, and their friendship with Josephine Hewitt. A glimpse at the events of the Spackle War and what followed through the eyes of Ben Moore.

Ok, if you haven't read these books, you are missing out and need to go read them right now. This makes perfect sense as a prequel to the world and fits into the achy hope-seeking universe.

* The Spaces Between Us (are full of everything we love) [The Holiday] by lionessvalenti

Living with long-distance relationships. A story told through emails.

Ok, this movie is great (and has bonus adorably sappy romantic Jude Law! Man, that guy is charming) if a little sappy, and this fic totally nails that.

* Jane Eyre has a Posse (Jane Austen's Fight Club) by Bow

After an initial success, Jane Austen's Fight Club has become tedious and routine. If fight club is to thrive, the ladies will need a serious intervention, Brontë-style. Featuring exciting crossover action!

This make me LOL. I was also embarrassed to not know all the characters (bad English major! my lack of Brontë is showing). Extremely clever.

* It's Always Summer in the Songs (Song of Ice & Fire) by Oshun

“. . . they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming.” -- A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two. Loras falls in love with Renly, from Loras's point of view. The story that isn't told in the books.

Otherwise known as Loras and Renly are so married.

* A cop-out rec of too much awesome: so many cool and fascinating fics in Grimm, which is a cool and entertaining new tv show that messes around delighfully in the fairy tale trope.

And, because January comes right after December (same every year!) I had a birthday! My friends threw me a party and it was awesome and filled with cake and presents. I had what felt like 800 birthday celebrations, between my friends and various groupings of my family. Love it.

I've been busy with work (tutoring and setting up the possibility of an early morning aide in kindergarten, oh and reading all the applications ever) but right now I have the cold of doom. Which means that instead of being productive I've been watching bad tv movies on Lifetime (I've learned way too much about teen issues today) and coding the heck out of this.

Oh, almost forgot, if you haven't seen it you should go check out my dashed off "what if Arthur/Eames were on Facebook?" fic that got 300 hits in a day and half. Inception is still the new black, friends. Forgotten how intense writing in popular fandoms in in regards to feedback. So, go see The Power of Social Media, it amuses me.

As previously stated, I am [Unknown LJ tag] at DW, add me!

Ok, this post has been sitting on my computer for 800 days, finally posting it. Yay.
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/270273.html. people have commented there.

Fic: The Power of Social Media (Inception, PG-13, Eames/Arthur pre-slash)

flyakate — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:30:01 GMT

So I've been reading too many posts on Conversations in Marvel on Tumblr and so I decided to poke around on the website that lets you make fake Facebook posts (not shockingly, this website is called fakefacebookstatus.com) This is definitely on the road to a bigger something that I am rock tumbling around in my brain, but I thought people would get a kick out of it, so there.

Hope you enjoy it?

Title: The Power of Social Media
Summary: Just a little talk between friends.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames pre-slash
Rating: PG-13 for some bad language
Notes: It really makes no sense for them to be using Facebook at all, I realize. But the idea was too funny to pass up.

This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth: http://flyakate.dreamwidth.org/270024.html. people have commented there.

hate to wake you up to say goodbye (Dreamwidth cross-posting notice)

flyakate — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:08:43 GMT

Though technically (and financially) I am a permanent account holder at Livejournal, I thought I would join in the fun on Dreamwidth and start with the amazing cross-posting business. So while I'll probably continue commenting on people's journals and fic and what have you, just wanted to give the heads up.

Yay?

Although I have to say, I'm a little bummed in having to pick out only 15 icons to use... so many good pictures! So little time!

Stories I Have Never Written

flyakate — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:35:40 GMT

The meme seen all over:

Tell me about a story I haven't written, and I'll give you between one and three sentences from that story.