wooooo fic dump + tumblr
I has a Tumblr now! Because I fail at not spending too much time on the internet.
100 word/140 character/3 sentence ficlets:
Fandom, character(s), prompt
fill
Avatar the Last Airdender, Zuko + Uncle Iroh, heal
With slow, deliberate movements, Zuko releases a perfect jet of fire from his palm -- and misses his mark by two feet.
He lets out a wordless shout of anger. "I can't aim with only one eye, Uncle," he declares, pawing at his bandage in frustration. He winces and growls as it starts to sting, a harsh reminder of the flame that had sat there just a few weeks before.
"Stop touching your bandages, Prince Zuko." The old man sips his tea, swaying gently with the ship deck. "That burn needs time to heal."
Both eyes stinging, Zuko marches belowdecks.
Supernatural, Sam + Gabriel, "Why is Dean pissed off at you this time?"
"Why's Dean pissed off at you this time?"
Big brown eyes blink up at him in perfect angelic (ha) innocence. "I don't know what you mean."
Sam snorts and rolls his eyes, but he's long ago given up on trying to get Gabriel to ever fess up to his crimes. His cell buzzes. "Look, he's started calling me now. He must be really pissed. Should I answer it?"
Gabriel arches an eyebrow in well-feined indifference. "If you want to."
Sam accepts the call. "Hey Dean, what's--"
"Dammit, Sam, tell that sonouvabitch angel of yours to give me back my pie!"
Harry Potter, Tom Riddle, the worst person you can think of gets scared sometimes, too.
There is another memory, that Harry didn't see because it wasn't in the Pensieve, of a drab grey orphanage in Muggle London. It wasn't in the Pensieve because there was no one there to witness it, only the little dark haired boy tangled in his sheets. His forehead shines with cold sweat as he thrashes, trying to escape prisons of his own making (his sheets and his head) and prisons that are not (featureless stone walls and a building that has never known love). When he was a boy, Tom Riddle cried out from a nightmare, and no one heard.
Animorphs, Rachel(/David), if you save someone’s life… you become responsible for everything they do
The little things: the patter of rat feet on the kitchen floor, a golden eagle pecking at the bars of one of Cassie's cages, passing the lions at the zoo. There is a twist of guilt in her gut, a little stab of foreboding. Anything David has done, might have done, maybe still will do, because she knows somehow that she hasn't seen the last of him -- any of that, it's all on her. It would have been so easy to kill him that night; a good stomp and it would have been done. It's just one more nightmare.
Queen's Thief, Eugenides (the god), I have loved them all in hopelessness
His Thieves are like his children. He watches as they scamper and climb, leaping impossible distances and scaling impossible walls. One loses his balance, arms windmilling, mouth locked in panic (a Thief never makes a sound he doesn't mean to) and Eugenides gently nudges him back onto the wall proper. The Thief goes on with his job and leaves more Thieves when he finally falls. There are so many Thieves, most related but not all, like the peasant girl who crouched on the king's dresser all night and startled him when he woke at dawn. They all fall, but Eugenides always takes them before they hit the ground.
Animorphs, Ellimist, I have loved them all in hopelessness
The Ellimist is old, but only feels it when he wants to. Sometimes he'll stand by a life as it passes in normal time, second by second, but other times he'll watch a story unfold in the blink of an eye. He loves them all, every one of these stupid, silly, flawed mortal beings. Sometimes he'll twist a life-strand here or there, but mostly he is content to watch them play out their own fates. But he has never seen life-strands like these, half a dozen shining, brilliant threads twisting into something great. These ones he will watch with care.
White Collar, Neal, moral
Morality is expensive. Neal has known this for years. (Mozzie has known it forever.) Sometimes, when you're down on your luck, it's a luxury that can't be afforded. Being light-fingered isn't as much a crime as it is a survival tactic. Soon he moves on to bigger and better things: scams, cons, straight-out thievery. Charm and wit aren't crimes either, and he's got those in spades.
Morality is a blurry line, Neal comes to realize. He does always try to do the right thing, but he knows now: right and moral aren't always the same, but right is always in-budget.
Harry Potter, Hermione + Krum, tutoring
"So you are vith Veasley now?"
Hermione blinks, her gaze flicking from safely fixed over his shoulder to his hooked nose and serious eyes. "What? No," she says, too quickly.
Viktor nods across the dance floor, where Ron stands redhead-and-shoulders above the crowd. "I saw how he looked when I asked you to dance. Vhat is the vord? Sour."
"We're not together," she says firmly, as though if he believes it they might have a chance. She notices that as they revolve slowly in place, he doesn't step on her toes.
Viktor shrugs. "My apologies." The topic shifts to safer things.
Buffy, Oz/Willow, Istanbul
They always talked about visiting someday. When they meet on the street ten years to the day from their first kiss, it's not an accident.
Animorphs, David/Marco/Rachel, silence
It's a Mexican stare-off in the gaps between the other Animorphs, challenging each other, wondering who will be the first to break and spill.
SPN, Ruby/Lucifer, breath
Sometimes, when she's near her breaking point, she thinks she can feel his cold breath on the back of her neck, urging her on. She lives for it.
Merlin (BBC), Merlin/Arthur, you always knew
Merlin POV
He registers no surprise, when I finally tell him. "You knew," I accuse him. "All this time you knew."
"Of course I knew. Everyone knew."
Arthur POV
"Did you think you were keeping it a secret?" I ask him. "Because you really weren't, you know."
"But Uther--"
"He knew you protected me."
Animorphs, Rachel & Cassie, braid
She settles up against my shins, shoulder blades pressing at my knees, and hands me the brush. "You know how to braid, right?" she says, teasing, and I roll my eyes and say, "I did have long hair in elementary school, you know," as I take the thick golden rope and carefully comb it into three. It's girly and pointless and she'll probably undo it to shower later, but there is inane chatter between us -- about normal things, homework and weekend plans and boys, instead of morphing and missions and aliens -- as I twist the silky strands into a neat braid, and when I loop the tie around the end of it we almost, for a moment, feel normal again.
Redwall, Sam Squirrel, sky
Silent Sam has tiny paws and a bushy tail; he has never said a word. He climbs to the tippy-top of the elm tree by the lake (the tallest tree inside the walls, because Cornflower in the gatehouse won't let him out) and as he looks to the blue, murmurs, "Sky". This is Silent Sam's first word; now he is just Sam.
Legend of Korra, Lin + Korra, stubborn
I cross my arms and stare at the girl across the table: dressed in the blue-dyed pelts of the Water Tribe, tall and pretty and all the things I was not at that age; and yet with her chin raised in defiance, and a look in her eye that I think my mother might have seen in me, if she'd seen it, when I sat on the other side of that table years and years before.
I was not a very obedient child, nor an easy one, but instead of yelling, or confining me to my room like other parents did, my mother would bring me here, and silently challenge me to a staring contest with her sightless eyes in the nearest free interrogation room, or take me to see the prisoners in their cells, well-treated but wretched all the same. It worked, in a way, and I think in the way she intended it to; I stare at Korra now across the table, a silent challenge, but I have many more years of practice with contests of sheer tenacity than she does: the Avatar, in this particular struggle, doesn't stand a chance.
Animorphs, James/Elena, new purpose
The others are gone now, sizzled away to nothing in bursts of green agony, Collette and Erica and Craig and Timmy and all of them, one by one, and I lie in the dust, a lion-shaped mass of pain; I fade in and out of consciousness, and feel both hot and cold at once, and I wonder if I am already dead.
There is a little brown blur, a songbird, perhaps, that lands on the ground beside me; a moment later or perhaps an hour I see red hair and a freckle-splashed nose, and I'm not capable of thoughtspeak or even coherent thought at the moment but I recognize her, through the haze, and I finally realize she's murmuring to me, one small hand resting lightly on a rare nearly-unburned patch of fur.
"Demorph," she's saying softly, "come on, James," and slowly, inch by inch, I pull myself back together until I am a boy in the dirt, without pain but hurting all the same; she takes my hand and helps me up, and we walk away together and leave our old selves behind.
The Finder, Walter, his fear mechanism is broken
Just like the plastic tricycle he found on the roadside, just like the old phonograph he bought for three bucks at a garage sale, just like the model airplane that was the only clue in a boy's kidnapping by a man with size-ten boots: Walter's fear mechanism is broken.
A gun is pointed at his face, a knife shoved up against his ribs, a sword point at the small of his back, and he stands still and wonders what this fear thing is, anyway; he doesn't remember, can't remember, the sudden, blood-freezing panic he'd felt in that years-long moment just before the boom that had sent him spiraling into the Ends of the Earth.
But then, he sees Leo with red spots of light dancing across his chest, or Willa unconscious on the floor, or Isabel pressing a palm to the crimson stain on her shirt with false bravado ("this will never wash out") and there's that little stirring, way down deep, and he wonders if maybe he's not so broken as he thought.
Animorphs, Ax + Tobias, you belong with me
< I have to go home, > he tells me, shuffling his hooves; there's a look in his eyes that I recognize, only it's different this time, it's flipped: he's betraying his new people to return to his old one.
< Yeah, > I say flatly, because I'm at my overload here, ends and deaths and departures, and I'm not sure what I'll do now, without a fight to fight, just a bird in a meadow.
He looks at me, with all four eyes, and even after all this time I'm no expert at reading Andalite expressions but I think, maybe, he wishes I would ask him to stay.
Longer fics will be up tomorrow, because gah, sleep.
100 word/140 character/3 sentence ficlets:
Fandom, character(s), prompt
fill
Avatar the Last Airdender, Zuko + Uncle Iroh, heal
With slow, deliberate movements, Zuko releases a perfect jet of fire from his palm -- and misses his mark by two feet.
He lets out a wordless shout of anger. "I can't aim with only one eye, Uncle," he declares, pawing at his bandage in frustration. He winces and growls as it starts to sting, a harsh reminder of the flame that had sat there just a few weeks before.
"Stop touching your bandages, Prince Zuko." The old man sips his tea, swaying gently with the ship deck. "That burn needs time to heal."
Both eyes stinging, Zuko marches belowdecks.
Supernatural, Sam + Gabriel, "Why is Dean pissed off at you this time?"
"Why's Dean pissed off at you this time?"
Big brown eyes blink up at him in perfect angelic (ha) innocence. "I don't know what you mean."
Sam snorts and rolls his eyes, but he's long ago given up on trying to get Gabriel to ever fess up to his crimes. His cell buzzes. "Look, he's started calling me now. He must be really pissed. Should I answer it?"
Gabriel arches an eyebrow in well-feined indifference. "If you want to."
Sam accepts the call. "Hey Dean, what's--"
"Dammit, Sam, tell that sonouvabitch angel of yours to give me back my pie!"
Harry Potter, Tom Riddle, the worst person you can think of gets scared sometimes, too.
There is another memory, that Harry didn't see because it wasn't in the Pensieve, of a drab grey orphanage in Muggle London. It wasn't in the Pensieve because there was no one there to witness it, only the little dark haired boy tangled in his sheets. His forehead shines with cold sweat as he thrashes, trying to escape prisons of his own making (his sheets and his head) and prisons that are not (featureless stone walls and a building that has never known love). When he was a boy, Tom Riddle cried out from a nightmare, and no one heard.
Animorphs, Rachel(/David), if you save someone’s life… you become responsible for everything they do
The little things: the patter of rat feet on the kitchen floor, a golden eagle pecking at the bars of one of Cassie's cages, passing the lions at the zoo. There is a twist of guilt in her gut, a little stab of foreboding. Anything David has done, might have done, maybe still will do, because she knows somehow that she hasn't seen the last of him -- any of that, it's all on her. It would have been so easy to kill him that night; a good stomp and it would have been done. It's just one more nightmare.
Queen's Thief, Eugenides (the god), I have loved them all in hopelessness
His Thieves are like his children. He watches as they scamper and climb, leaping impossible distances and scaling impossible walls. One loses his balance, arms windmilling, mouth locked in panic (a Thief never makes a sound he doesn't mean to) and Eugenides gently nudges him back onto the wall proper. The Thief goes on with his job and leaves more Thieves when he finally falls. There are so many Thieves, most related but not all, like the peasant girl who crouched on the king's dresser all night and startled him when he woke at dawn. They all fall, but Eugenides always takes them before they hit the ground.
Animorphs, Ellimist, I have loved them all in hopelessness
The Ellimist is old, but only feels it when he wants to. Sometimes he'll stand by a life as it passes in normal time, second by second, but other times he'll watch a story unfold in the blink of an eye. He loves them all, every one of these stupid, silly, flawed mortal beings. Sometimes he'll twist a life-strand here or there, but mostly he is content to watch them play out their own fates. But he has never seen life-strands like these, half a dozen shining, brilliant threads twisting into something great. These ones he will watch with care.
White Collar, Neal, moral
Morality is expensive. Neal has known this for years. (Mozzie has known it forever.) Sometimes, when you're down on your luck, it's a luxury that can't be afforded. Being light-fingered isn't as much a crime as it is a survival tactic. Soon he moves on to bigger and better things: scams, cons, straight-out thievery. Charm and wit aren't crimes either, and he's got those in spades.
Morality is a blurry line, Neal comes to realize. He does always try to do the right thing, but he knows now: right and moral aren't always the same, but right is always in-budget.
Harry Potter, Hermione + Krum, tutoring
"So you are vith Veasley now?"
Hermione blinks, her gaze flicking from safely fixed over his shoulder to his hooked nose and serious eyes. "What? No," she says, too quickly.
Viktor nods across the dance floor, where Ron stands redhead-and-shoulders above the crowd. "I saw how he looked when I asked you to dance. Vhat is the vord? Sour."
"We're not together," she says firmly, as though if he believes it they might have a chance. She notices that as they revolve slowly in place, he doesn't step on her toes.
Viktor shrugs. "My apologies." The topic shifts to safer things.
Buffy, Oz/Willow, Istanbul
They always talked about visiting someday. When they meet on the street ten years to the day from their first kiss, it's not an accident.
Animorphs, David/Marco/Rachel, silence
It's a Mexican stare-off in the gaps between the other Animorphs, challenging each other, wondering who will be the first to break and spill.
SPN, Ruby/Lucifer, breath
Sometimes, when she's near her breaking point, she thinks she can feel his cold breath on the back of her neck, urging her on. She lives for it.
Merlin (BBC), Merlin/Arthur, you always knew
Merlin POV
He registers no surprise, when I finally tell him. "You knew," I accuse him. "All this time you knew."
"Of course I knew. Everyone knew."
Arthur POV
"Did you think you were keeping it a secret?" I ask him. "Because you really weren't, you know."
"But Uther--"
"He knew you protected me."
Animorphs, Rachel & Cassie, braid
She settles up against my shins, shoulder blades pressing at my knees, and hands me the brush. "You know how to braid, right?" she says, teasing, and I roll my eyes and say, "I did have long hair in elementary school, you know," as I take the thick golden rope and carefully comb it into three. It's girly and pointless and she'll probably undo it to shower later, but there is inane chatter between us -- about normal things, homework and weekend plans and boys, instead of morphing and missions and aliens -- as I twist the silky strands into a neat braid, and when I loop the tie around the end of it we almost, for a moment, feel normal again.
Redwall, Sam Squirrel, sky
Silent Sam has tiny paws and a bushy tail; he has never said a word. He climbs to the tippy-top of the elm tree by the lake (the tallest tree inside the walls, because Cornflower in the gatehouse won't let him out) and as he looks to the blue, murmurs, "Sky". This is Silent Sam's first word; now he is just Sam.
Legend of Korra, Lin + Korra, stubborn
I cross my arms and stare at the girl across the table: dressed in the blue-dyed pelts of the Water Tribe, tall and pretty and all the things I was not at that age; and yet with her chin raised in defiance, and a look in her eye that I think my mother might have seen in me, if she'd seen it, when I sat on the other side of that table years and years before.
I was not a very obedient child, nor an easy one, but instead of yelling, or confining me to my room like other parents did, my mother would bring me here, and silently challenge me to a staring contest with her sightless eyes in the nearest free interrogation room, or take me to see the prisoners in their cells, well-treated but wretched all the same. It worked, in a way, and I think in the way she intended it to; I stare at Korra now across the table, a silent challenge, but I have many more years of practice with contests of sheer tenacity than she does: the Avatar, in this particular struggle, doesn't stand a chance.
Animorphs, James/Elena, new purpose
The others are gone now, sizzled away to nothing in bursts of green agony, Collette and Erica and Craig and Timmy and all of them, one by one, and I lie in the dust, a lion-shaped mass of pain; I fade in and out of consciousness, and feel both hot and cold at once, and I wonder if I am already dead.
There is a little brown blur, a songbird, perhaps, that lands on the ground beside me; a moment later or perhaps an hour I see red hair and a freckle-splashed nose, and I'm not capable of thoughtspeak or even coherent thought at the moment but I recognize her, through the haze, and I finally realize she's murmuring to me, one small hand resting lightly on a rare nearly-unburned patch of fur.
"Demorph," she's saying softly, "come on, James," and slowly, inch by inch, I pull myself back together until I am a boy in the dirt, without pain but hurting all the same; she takes my hand and helps me up, and we walk away together and leave our old selves behind.
The Finder, Walter, his fear mechanism is broken
Just like the plastic tricycle he found on the roadside, just like the old phonograph he bought for three bucks at a garage sale, just like the model airplane that was the only clue in a boy's kidnapping by a man with size-ten boots: Walter's fear mechanism is broken.
A gun is pointed at his face, a knife shoved up against his ribs, a sword point at the small of his back, and he stands still and wonders what this fear thing is, anyway; he doesn't remember, can't remember, the sudden, blood-freezing panic he'd felt in that years-long moment just before the boom that had sent him spiraling into the Ends of the Earth.
But then, he sees Leo with red spots of light dancing across his chest, or Willa unconscious on the floor, or Isabel pressing a palm to the crimson stain on her shirt with false bravado ("this will never wash out") and there's that little stirring, way down deep, and he wonders if maybe he's not so broken as he thought.
Animorphs, Ax + Tobias, you belong with me
< I have to go home, > he tells me, shuffling his hooves; there's a look in his eyes that I recognize, only it's different this time, it's flipped: he's betraying his new people to return to his old one.
< Yeah, > I say flatly, because I'm at my overload here, ends and deaths and departures, and I'm not sure what I'll do now, without a fight to fight, just a bird in a meadow.
He looks at me, with all four eyes, and even after all this time I'm no expert at reading Andalite expressions but I think, maybe, he wishes I would ask him to stay.
Longer fics will be up tomorrow, because gah, sleep.