LaceOverSand

Mistakes

Fandom: Lotrips
Rating: pg13
Pairing: Billy/Elijah
Betaed by shanalle. Written for ipso_facto in last year's Secret Slasha. Creepily influenced by Lemony Snicket. How unfortunate.

Thirteenth Heart

Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Warning: Dark. Non-graphical references to torture and death.
Summary: Post-war. Ron copes with the ambiguities of doing what needs to be done. Draco becomes a problem.
Pairings: References to Ron/Hermione, Ron/Snape, and Ron/Draco.
Thanks go to narrauko and shanalle for beta work and encouragement, and to captnobvious for helping the original idea to settle. Fic prompted by this article, and helped along by lyrics from the two lines challenge.

This is not political. This is not allegory. Please don't take this as an attempt at anything more than it is. Feedback is, of course, incredibly welcome, but if I wanted to be in a debate on real world issues I would undoubtedly approach the topic differently.

This draws on various recent and current happenings and situations, things I have read in the news and seen floating around. Even less original than your typical piece of fanfic, I suppose. The lines in bold are direct quotation from memos of Donald Rumsfeld's, as reported by various newspapers. A selection of the memos is available should anybody desire details.

Kicked

Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: None.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Note: Double drabble for captnobvious, who has just started law school and was telling me about Vosburg v. Putney. Sounded like Draco to me.

Draco scowled, partly because he was learning that he was innately very good at the expression, but mainly because his patience was wearing a little thin. This, after only the first few months of his first year at school.

"Look, if I'd been trying to make his leg fall off I would have at least made a decent show of it." He thought carefully, with consideration for diagrams in books. "There would have been pus. Or lizards. Making someone's leg fall off by kicking them in the shin seems... bit of an unreliable method. I've certainly never heard of a proven case to recommend it."

Draco sniffed and dismissed accusations of family arrogance without another thought. If people would stop behaving quite this idiotically, so thoroughly inferior, then maybe he wouldn't have to feel so superior. Which was really quite a confusing thing to feel with Snape and McGonagall peering imperiously down at him.

Neither seemed to think him particularly amusing, arms folded, eyes narrowed. "This is no laughing matter, Mr. Malfoy. Madam Pomfrey was hard pushed to reattach the limb in time, a most complicated procedure."

That was McGonagall, wiry voice unamused. Snape was silent, seeing further, still unamused.

The Very Secret Diary Of Paris, Prince Of Troj

A/N: Because every fandom needs a not as good as the original attempt at Very Secret Diaries. Here's mine. Thanks as always to my darling beta, S.

Day 1

Menelaus is very butch, but not as butch as Hector. Love Hector. But I like Menelaus' beard, it tickles in just the right places. Spent the night in Menelaus' room again because bed is just so bouncy. Skinny girl with too much jewellery who's always strangely there whenever I am whined that I'd get in trouble, but told her it was ok because Menelaus did say it was. It's true, he said I was welcome in his bed absolutely whenever, and it is just so bouncy.

Also, someone tried to pinch my bum. May have been skinny girl, but cannot be certain.

Day 2

Skinny girl's name is Helen, of Various Places. Wanted to come on boat with us, but made her remove some jewellery before allowing her on as did not want to sink.

And then she kissed me and then that was nice.

Hector is mad at me. Seems to think wife-swapping not so popular in Sparta.

Day 3

Glad to be back in Troj. Hector keeps complaining that hot sex was disturbing steering even without the jewellery.

Introduced Helen of Various Places to Father and he got a little confused. But then she showed him the remainder of her jewellery and he seemed to understand.

Briseis is now a priestess, and definitely pinched my bum. Poor confused girl.

Day 4

Greeks have arrived. Hector is being an arsey told-you-so.

Tried counting boats but got distracted by african swallows and pineapple. More than when I tried to run off with Oddyseus, but fewer than Hector got when he eloped with Achilles.

Sick of Helen getting more boats than me, am convinced going blonde will solve problem. Will maybe try new braiding style. Or a hat. But not one with a feather, because that would just look silly.

Day 5

Am going to challenge Menelaus to a fight thing. Last time met up with Oddyseus he mentioned latest wily theory, something to do with what he was calling genetics. Suggested that because Hector very butch, I must also have basic degree of butch. Right? Right. Menelaus is dead meat.

Helen came in late tonight, and then we had hot sex. She is completely shameless, and did not even bother to pretend that she wasn't shouting for Hector. Have forgiven her, as I may have been doing the same.

Am forward-thinking Prince of Passion and have always been very supportive of wife-swapping. Andromache is totally hot. But not as hot as Oddyseus.

Day 6

Father gave me new sword for the fight thing. Except it's not a new sword at all, but really a very old one. Have been told it should kill things just as well.

When it actually came to fight Menelaus seemed very upset. Apparently, it wasn't him pinching my bum after all, I now know that when he pinches it's really very easy to tell it's him due to the blood and the pain and the not nice. Throwing my hair about tactic did not work as well as planned, and was so traumatised by pinching I crawled back to Hector. Love Hector. He so butch. Way more butch than Menelaus, and Menelaus now very dead.

Did not stick around for big battle as by this point hair was a bit of a mess. Achilles wasn't there in any case, but I'm sure Oddyseus would have noticed.

Day 8

Hector found out about Patroclus and both are now very dead. Achilles still has bad hair.

Both Helen and Father very upset. I may also be very upset, but I don't have enough facial expressions to be certain.

Day 10

Snuck out to meet Oddyseus in his large wooden sheep for hot sex. Helen found a splinter in my bum and is saying she'll leave me.

Day 13

Oddyseus has quite the wooden menagerie fetish. Will never look at a camel in quite the same way ever again.

Day 17

Or hamsters.

Day 20

Greeks finally seem to have buggered off.

Handiwork on large wooden horse looks alarmingly familiar. Suggested to father that he should burn it before we all die of syphilis but was ignored, as usual.

Day 21

Am not sure where Greeks burning city came from, but am fairly sure heard argument over lube coming from outside temple to Poseidon. Ran for bow and arrows immediately, as know exactly how violent Oddyseus can get when in pursuit of lube.

Interestingly enough, have learned to kill things. Briseis seems to think I have been getting a bit carried away with this, but Achilles never mentioned anything. Then again, I didn't speak to him for long as bum-pinching in temple was unbearable.

Helen has run off with sister-in-law. Said I was not girly enough for her any more. Tried to get Oddyseus to sell me some of his new Friz-Eze hair straightener as was fleeing city. Am certain new hair would get her back but former love of life only shouted at me. Said I was supposed to be dead and to get the hell out of his sequel. Gave sword to short dependable type in any case, so not sure if it really matters.

Sober Bones

Fandom: Lotrips
Pairing: elijah (/dominic, dominic/billy)
Rating: pg
Notes: Written for remix 2004, the original story was Intergalactic by Blythely.
Warning: Strong 2001 Space Odyssey references. Sorry, but yes, geek? Definitely.
Beta: ktnb and S. - thankyou both.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Even more so than usual.

You Think You Know (1/?)

Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: None as yet
Rating: PG for darkness.
Warning: Big on the psych!angst. Also, very much a WiP. Really more of a Wi-halted-P. I haven't abandoned it, but it is indefinitely postponed.
Summary: Post-war, Draco POV.
Disclaimer: Not mine. (Is anything ever?)
Beta: The wonderful aforementioned S. Thankyou so much.
Feedback: Always welcome. Make it as harshly critical as you can. And if anybody knows of a good community/list to post this on, please let me know.
Notes: Someone has just posted a LotRips fic by the same title, but I swear, this has been sitting on my hardrive with this label for almost as long as this blog has been running. It is, of course, part of a buffy quote, and there's a shiny nickle in it for anybody that can tell me which.

Fingers

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Andy Serkis / Thomas Robbins (guy that plays Deagol)
Rating: pg
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Tom still remembers those fingers about his neck. Still remembers the clutching grabbing clawing. It was so completely Gollum, so ungodly and evil and lost. He thinks sometimes when he swallows he can still feel the hurtful pressure constricting. He hated it back then, hated the Gollum-ness.

Except it wasn't Gollum; it was Smeagol all along. And it wasn't death; it was cameras action 'sorry mate' then paycheck.

After hurting, Tom could now almost wish for it, any touch, and just rarely he thoughtfully wraps a hand around his throat. Ponders Smeagol's descent, and thinks he might be going mad.

Removals

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Craig Parker/Karl Urban
Rating: r
Summary: Moving furniture can be challenging.
Disclaimer.

Casual 21-30/30

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Marton Csokas/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: pg
Notes: Hours 21-30 of the drabble marathon. That's it now. Really. No. More.
Disclaimer.

All Marton could do was listen carefully to the unhappy scrape of chair leg against floor. The sound grated as it perforated the stillness, and Marton couldn't bear to listen to anything else.

Viggo stood with cruel placid calm, compassion, and understanding written clear. He stood in front of Marton all fearless and brave, the archetypal hero, and Marton thought he might hate him at that moment.

Viggo broke as Marton watched, and his face rippled and fell apart, bell-broken in laughter. The sound scythed deep curves out of the room, and Marton couldn't bear to listen to anything else.

***

There is a certain relief to be found in chaos. Marton found it as he caught Viggo and the confusion rushed cyclonically through his mind, hissing in its sudden dispersion.

Marton hadn't known what to expect when he said those words. In fact, he hadn't a clue he was going to say them until he actually did. Every bit of terror, unjustified, and he understood at that moment that he wasn't supposed to have known. Guilty insecurity to be forever forgotten.

Who could have predicted this? A Viggo in hysterics, mirth stealing his breath and bending him over crippled, wheezing.

***

He sat Viggo down, and he carried on laughing. Incapacitated.

He thought maybe if Viggo explained the joke he could laugh too and they'd laugh, and it would be together and laughed out. But Viggo can't breathe steadily for long enough to help with the requisite enlightenment.

Marton got Viggo a glass of water, and sat it patiently on the table for him. Viggo ignored it, and Marton thought that maybe he should start getting worried.

He tried introducing an orange drinking straw, but again Viggo ignored it. Marton gave up and poured the water over Viggo's mop of hair.

***

The water droplets clung, suspended to thin clumped tendrils of mouse dark hair. They caught on the daily grime that Viggo accumulated, and hung as miniscule baubles stuck with natural body oils and industrial hair products.

The rest of the water lay in pools and splashes, wasted and lost, glistening even as it vanished into the air.

Viggo had spluttered, then caught his breath, and gradually come down from his unhealthy high.

He wiped the coalescence from off his face, a combination of tears and sparkling shock of splatter, and apologises as he flicks out the creases around his eyes.

***

Annoyance rang loud in his ears, but it wasn't directed at Viggo. Not entirely, and not relating to now specifically. Marton had sat on his anxiety for months, and Viggo had obviously been teetering at just past endurance for far too long. So Marton could wait.

Absently he wondered what the hell Peter was doing to them.

He ushered Viggo into the bedroom and closed the blinds as the other man undressed himself and crawled onto the covers. He went to turn the light out as he left, but Viggo pulled him down to him, and he let Viggo sleep.

***

They ate breakfast at four in the afternoon on Viggo's living room floor, sparse refrigerator emptied onto plates. Luxury fruit juice supped from unaesthetic mugs in a ritual so personal it almost felt routine.

Marton sat leaning against the sofa, legs unfurled and relaxed. It would have been easy to leave the dramatics far behind, as an unamusing recollection. No, they weren't about to do that, but it was really Viggo's turn to open the evasive topic.

"I'm not in love with you either, you know."

"Well I rather figured you weren't after yesterday's debacle."

Viggo grimaced. "Sorry about that."

***

Daytime light rested sheet-like over a mussed bed.

They lay lazily in bed, trading affection and conversation.

"So what are we then?" Marton planted a delicate leaf of lips just below Viggo's ear. "We're not lovers, are we?"

"We could try it if you wanted, but I don't think it would work."

"It wouldn't." Kiss, lick, squirm.

"Don't get me wrong, I love you. It's just not like that."

Marton didn't even have to think before he agreed. "So are we, what, just casual?"

Viggo looked skeptical. "It doesn't feel very casual."

"No," Marton agreed. "Not very casual at all."

***

Marton stood in front of the steamed bathroom mirror, squinting at a foggy reflection. Folding cloth over on itself, knotting and adjusting.

"Sean asked me today if I was bringing you to the dinner."

He looked up in surprise. "Viggo, you said they'd stopped snooping."

"Apparently, never to be."

The jacket was a dark blur in the mosaic the condensation played over the glass. A pale smear of face between collar and hair, features lost.

"They know you're coming. Said we're not together, though."

"We're not, apart from arriving and leaving."

Marton wondered if his hair would ever look presentable.

***

There were new cast members that Marton hadn't met at that particular event. They chatted over sophisticated drinks and a reseau of gentle jazz as he stood by the bar, his right elbow leaning against the polished veneer wood, glass in hand. Exact.

Something flickered, and there was a face, captured with a blink at the corner of his vision.

The world never melted; Marton never remembered any bleaching colour or lost dimensions. The sound slurred, discordantly, and was gone. Leaving broken laws of physics and buzzing in his ears.

He barely remembers Viggo's teasing smile and knowingly prompting words.

***

It took longer than he thought it would, if he's honest. Viggo and he, however innocent and reformed, were never going be even remotely convincing to a suspicious mind.

He knows some people who yet need to learn to mind their own business that enjoy blaming Viggo. They tell him that indulging in casual relationships is what ruins the worthwhile ones, and that at the very least Viggo should have stopped calling.

If Marton thinks about love, to love, to be in love, and he thinks about what he's lost, then he smiles. Wouldn't change a second.

Anything but casual.

Casual 16-20/?

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Marton Csokas/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: pg
Notes: Hours 16-20 of the drabble marathon. It's possible I'm getting a bit shit.
Disclaimer.

When Viggo finally awoke they sat on the living room floor and ate bowls of cereal. Also, there was orange juice, but neither bothered with coffee.

Conversation was not stilted. Viggo had the day off. Marton was still waiting for his next piece of work to come along.

He should have spent the day reading scripts. He should have spent the day trying to work out how a certain character would have said this, or the subtle nuances of deciding the part's response to that.

They sat and talked easily and inconsequentially enough, but Marton wished for a script nevertheless.

***

They didn't always stay at Viggo's, but it was often easier to do so than to stay at Marton's. Viggo would often have to go to work in the mornings, whereas Marton's obligations were more sporadic.

Every time Marton came home to an empty house it felt wrong. An empty bed, unslept in, uncrumpled. Neglected. Marton knew, even back then, right from the beginning, that it wasn't quite right. A lack of definition.

His house never accused, but it was always so obvious in its pain once ignored. Marton dismissed whatever needless parallels he knew he had created for himself.

***

Their friends didn't notice a difference, mainly because there was no observable difference. It was strange, a thought, that they spent so long seeing what wasn't there. Then, a whisper, a hint that they joked on, that they interpreted uncaring as they willed, and yet never approached the essence of. They became something else after the very first night in Viggo's bed, not a thought or a whisper, but something that had been there throughout, edifying but unremarkable, uninteresting.

Nobody smiled their crude insinuations once the laughter ran old, and there was nothing new with which to pronounce discovered intimacy.

***

Every time Viggo kissed Marton, he remembered not to worry. Every time.

Marton worried most of the time, in a perfectly healthy way, and simply as a means for regulating his life.

But every time Viggo was there, the world made that little bit of extra effort to sort itself out. It was still there, never melted away as Marton continued to hope it might, but slowly he became accustomed to his Viggo-reinforced world.

Life could fall apart without him, but then life could fall apart without any number of individuals. Marton never worked out what his contribution was, exactly.

***

Marton slammed the door, and dimly registered how Anduril clattered to the floor in the corner, reverberating from the force of the blow.

He glared at Viggo, who looked exhausted, sandwich half-eaten and tea that Marton suspected would, in all likelihood, be stone cold, thermodynamically dead. He stood there before him and screamed his fury with accusing body posture and impotent mustered will.

Could have burned, could have vented, could have powered a steam-based nation at the height of some industrial revolution.

Eyes softened. Either way, either eyes, maybe both.

"I don't understand why I'm not in love with you."

Casual 11-15/?

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Marton Csokas/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: R - IF YOU ARE NOT A SLASHER, DO NOT READ
Notes: Hours 11-15 of the drabble marathon.
Disclaimer.

Did I say that loudly enough? This is rated R, and contains description of homosexual relations. Beware, here there be smut. DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THAT

The door closed behind them, and Marton thought, this is it, this is that melodramatic cliché. It was supposed to hit him then, he knew. He was supposed to look at Viggo and watch the walls and carpet melt like a candy house, with space-time distortion and two bodies suspended.

Odd, that emotion should be attributed such Einsteinian powers.

The world didn't melt, and Marton had to tell Viggo.

"Hey, did you notice that we didn't destroy the laws of physics, and isn't there something wrong with that?"

It didn't quite ring true, and Marton didn't know what to say.

***

Marton watched Viggo as he deposited his keys in the drawer by the door. Watched him turn, and wondered if it was at all possible that Viggo simply wouldn't see him standing there with his lost opacity.

Viggo could have walked right through him, and he could have changed existentialism instead of physics.

Viggo unbuttoned Marton's shirt, and as he watched the careful fingers at work, Marton was still detachedly wondering whether he really wanted this.

Viggo kissed him, and he was still deciding. Viggo pulled him into a darkened room with Viggo-smelling bed linen, and Marton was still deciding.

***

For some reason it suddenly became ok. Because it was Viggo, maybe, or because it was Tuesday, and rainless. Because of clothes over chairs and familiar caresses newly possessing of want.

Marton kissed and was kissed, moaned and attended, prompted and followed. Knew this body so well already, knew exactly where to press hard, where to stroke soft, which places wanted to give and had been telling him how for weeks.

When he looked back on that night, Marton often wanted to think it was ok because it was Viggo. But mainly it was just ok because it was naked.

***

Their lightly haired middles rubbed, dry with heat but promising sweat transuded as Marton renewed his seize on the sculpted convex round of ass beneath his hands. Lips repeating a locking pattern, upper and lower lip alternated between with rhythmic tongue and taste and oh.

There was no hesitation as Marton rolled them forward, Viggo onto his belly, stretching and spread and hard. Marton looming above, over, forwards, simultaneously collected and awed.

Viggo reached for the bedside table, flicked on the light clumsily, and keen illumination changed nothing.

Lube and preparation and condom. Then tight heat, and an embrace unspeakable.

***

Marton had never seen Viggo naked before. The light streamed in through ineffective blinds, and the glow spread through the room, softly invading corners and hidden shadows.

In curiosity he wanted to see it all. Wanted to move through every angle, and decipher what it was about this man's body that made him feel its movement as if by some cohesion.

Marton wanted to see and know and feel all this. He didn't move, though, he kept still and let Viggo sleep. He pondered the light summer duvet tangled about his feet, and watched and waited as late morning rose.

Casual 6-10/?

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Marton Csokas/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: PG13 (for the moment)
Notes: Hours 6-10 of the drabble marathon.
Disclaimer.

The parameters of whatever it is they had were blurred, but Marton remembers how things felt.

He can remember the exact detail that struck him again and again. Square inches of skin pixelated along a continuous spectrum of imperfected flesh tones. He remembers noticing, not staring, maybe at the same time as he flicked Viggo's scrambled hair away from his face or as they sat talking.

Each leaning unconsciously towards the other. Unconscious, not bothered with the why, but both stubbornly aware.

Marton remembers sitting at friendly tables with secretly nudging thighs. Warm arms loosely draped, undemanding and unsuddenly familiar.

***

Kisses were fleeting. They attracted curious eyes, and so were generally but brushes of lip against skin, transitive and indefinite. Sometimes they were small, solid things, firmly planted, shut lips against shut lips, pleased hellos or equally happy goodbyes.

Curious eyes that politely refrained from commenting. Or curious eyes that were too busy playing their own younger flirtatious games to articulate their inevitable misconceptions.

Sleepy alone kisses never came often. But sometimes, just rarely, it would seem perfectly normal to share long wet exchanges with no direction, safely depositing both back at their blithe point of embarkation. Gentle, risk-free mouthing.

*

Marton was the one that took the next step, that disrupted the carefree equilibrium.

They walked back one night, meandering in the summer air and talking gently. They reached Viggo's house, and on the doorstep Marton kissed him, completely and unsloppily, and rewriting the rules. Teeth and tongue and lips, pushing, entering, licking and sliding. It was everything that had never come before, and an admission of all that had been exactingly partitioned off.

There still wasn't much of a why, just an undeniable. Everything that could have been forgotten, left standing as some dusty addendum of the friendship, declared.

*

Suburbia was exactly where Marton would expect to find Viggo. He knew this seemed oxymoronic to the rest of the world, understood the view that Viggo was pedantically eccentric, and would therefore belong anywhere but in the complacent normalcy of something so mundane as suburbia.

Viggo belonged in the wilds, with bare feet in the grass and camping out. Or Viggo belonged in the city, with his camera and dereliction, and the powerful visual capture of society's grit.

Viggo belonged in suburbia, like secrets, special innately, unassuming and needless of display.

Viggo belonged in Marton's mouth, tongues twining in segue.

*

As Viggo drew him closer Marton felt hands encompass his waist, moving up along his sides with steady permission. He leant them easily against the door and gently rested his hands on hips clothed with familiar material, grip supportive and supporting.

It was a connection, and the same connection that had been there all the while. Like reading a favourite novel in an entire new language, this kink of mouth was some delicious new perversion, multi-facetted but right.

Marton's oral venture over Viggo's collarbone was something new entirely, an explorative probe, asking and finding, hearing the grinding.

"Let's get inside."

Casual 1-5/?

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Marton Csokas/Viggo Mortensen
Rating: PG13 (for the moment)
Notes: Hours 1-5 of the drabble marathon.
Disclaimer.

Marton laughed as he studied Viggo, all imperceptible lines and placid surfaces.

"You can't be serious."

It was evident, just how serious he was. Serious as fuck, and that was appropriate, seeing as a fuck was what was at the core of the question.

Just a fuck. Colliding flesh and sweat-worn sheets. Men with their harsh fineness and demanding sensuality.

Marton laughed as he studied Viggo, but he couldn't laugh off the question outright. He knew the answer to this one, exactly how friends weren't there for fucking.

That night, as he looked at Viggo, the why became inconveniently elusive.

***

"This friendship's important to me, Viggo."

"Me too."

Marton tried to work out if Viggo was disappointed with him, if the rejection had stung a little. He'd had a moment of doubt, of insecure terror introducing the possibility that Viggo was after something less than the enduring amity that he himself was quite comfortable with. The idea crossed his mind as some careless smudge of charcoal, resented and shameful.

The proposition had been unexpected, typically Viggo. It had been artistically unsubtle, and now Marton felt the need to pick at its layers.

"I really don't think it's a good idea."

***

It didn't matter. Marton kept telling himself that it didn't matter, repeatedly, until he was sick of the thought, incessantly wittering in his head. Viggo hadn't changed, and Marton hadn't changed, and if Marton had been able to kick out that voice prompting him to forget an easy conversation held in a specific bar, then the friendship wouldn't have changed either.

As it was, Marton felt the discomfort that had been so lacking at the time. It should have felt like a strange conversation back when they spoke it, but the reaction slipped by, even as time now chased it.

***

Apparently, some already considered them some bizarre variation on a couple even back then. This altogether mystified Marton for longer than he kept track of, but even though it never amused him the same way it did Viggo, it didn't particularly bother him. Peripheral mocking, easily ignored.

They carried on the same as ever, and although Marton mentally still took out the conversation to try to dissect it but a little more, it was like trying to read the bottom layer of a paint-splattered collage.

Viggo first kissed Marton on a night of warm beer, jokingly affectionate, soft-lipped and familiar.

***

They began the casual touching without thinking. It didn't mean anything; lacked tension, guile or anything physically subversive of rational decisions. Maybe not quite innocent, though.

Their closeness was impressionist, a blurred palette of contact and absent-minded caress. The lines blurred and receded, leaving an amalgamation of friendly exchanges, flavoured but not shaped by an echoing development of tangible presence.

If Marton had stopped to think, it might have occurred to him that it was slightly unusual for two such people to be so tactile. But it was unlooked for soothing at the time, and relaxed into mindlessly once begun.

Making Sure

Fandom: LotRips
Pairing: Orlando/Viggo
Rating: G
Notes: First time I've responded to lotrips100. For the unusual place prompt.
Disclaimer: See here.

"I just wanted to make sure you knew..."

Orlando shivers, the chilling night biting through a thin t-shirt to eat into his skin. Cold. Really very cold. Not that Viggo seems to notice.

"Well, good, it's important to me that you know..."

He tucks his arms in as close to his torso's body heat as possible as the stars blink and the shadows of mysteriously shaped undergrowth loom unchanging nearby. Viggo continues.

"You have no idea how long I've spent thinking about this, you really do need..."

The water swirls about Orlando's thighs, and the riverbed clinks beneath flooded boots.

A New Cuiviénen (1/3)

Series: Choking Hazard (1/?)
Fandom: LotR FPS (sort of)
Rating: G
Warning: Weird. With all the promise of getting weirder.
Summary: The awakening of an Action Figure.
Beta: Daea. Wow and thankyou.
Notes: For the CharactersInBloom January Action Elf challenge. Also, I would like to take this oppurtunity to point out that I am not on crack. I suffered severe sleep deprivation in mid-January due to sitting up watching Sharpe dvds nonstop for 16 hours. When I woke up after having caught up on my slumber, this was stuck in my head and wouldn't leave.

Extreme Ironing

Fandom: Boondock Saints
Rating: PG13
Notes: Just joined bds_drabble. Sucker for the challenges.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Temperature. Connor can't feel it, can't breathe it, can't breathe at all. There's temperature in there somewhere. Though through the actual pain he only barely manages to register the pervading stench of his capillaries sealing and his blood sizzling, as he tries to think of vegetarianism and anything but frying flesh.

And he'd thought cleaning and binding and walking on the wound had been excruciating enough.

Pain. Pain. Heat and pain. Heat, pain, pain, heat. Just pain.

Connor can taste the burn in the roof of his mouth surrounding the tea towel. He can see it in the steam, can hear it in the hiss, smell it like it'll never leave him alone in peace with his sinuses intact ever again. The heat doesn't hurt, because he can't feel it, and the pain comes direct from the metal. There's a gentle body behind him, holding him violently, and Connor doubts he'd be sane without it.

The heat doesn't hurt, but every other sense is screaming.

Throwing Stones

Fandom: LotR RPS
Pairing: ob/dm
Rating: PG13
Summary: Dom's being an idiot about Orlando.
Notes: Response to the What's Next Dom challenge. What happened after that fantastic kiss on the red carpet in L.A.
Disclaimer: See here.

Digital Grading

Fandom: LotR RPS
Pairing: sb/ew
Rating: PG
Summary: The world is digitally graded.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Eyes On The Road

Fandom: LotR RPS
Pairing: ob/?
Rating: PG
Summary: Response to the CharactersInBloom June "The Girls Are All Right" challenge. Written ages and ages ago. Posted now... because I felt like it.
Disclaimer: It's all pink grapefruit to me.

"Eyes! Eyes!" Liv squeaked. "Eyes on road! Road! Orli! Damnit, Orli, eyes on the shitting road!"

A horn sounded from an adjacent lane, and Orlando allowed whatever habitually negligent sense of self-preservation he possessed to reactivate at least a part of his brain in order to prevent the impending highway immolation.

Both sets of eyes were now glued to the tarmac, a slightly nervous silence itching at the tension in the car.

Orlando's face reanimated gradually as a speculative and somewhat disconcerting smirk edged through his features. He risked a flicker of a glance sideways at Liv.

"He really said that about me?"

1 Day To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Damn stubborn cracker.

Stupid tasteless pink cracker.

Cracker didn't want to bang. Cracker keeping tacky secrets to itself.

Someone sober would be putting an end to this nonsense. Elijah was busy giggling at them, Billy was creating a pyramid from the already cracked cracker debris, and everybody else... was busy actively ignoring. Which left Dominic and Orlando to tackle the rogue cracker with their own distinctively self-destructive approach to the task.

Hips forwards, shoulders back, feet flexed. Stupid grins plastered, as they used their full weight to tug-of-war the paper and explosive into submission.

How long before it finally snapped?

2 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Elijah stood leaning against the barrier to the ice, clutching to his coffee, and watching.

It was mayhem out there, the kind pretending to be controlled, hiding behind the idea of being full of festive cheer and happy families.

He watched, bemused, as an old man in a top hat skated past on one leg, somehow managing to keep firm hold of what was presumably his granddaughter, a beautiful blonde mini-diva in a fine red coat.

The vision was obliterated, as his sight was invaded by something white and blurry. It felt unmistakeably cold and damp. Snowballs it was, then.

3 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

"Orlando, put the star back on the Christmas tree..."

"Orlando, stop being so awkward..."

"Orlando, you are completely ruining our decorations..."

He thought this was a bit rich coming from the person who introduced the cat to the room.

The voices faded to background static as Orlando directed the toy about the room, the Christmas tree star firmly clasped between the plastic talons of the remote-controlled flying parrot.

And the air-speed velocity of a laden dead parrot was...

...Not being calculated, but the thing whirred from wall to wall, narrowly missing a brief collision with the curtains. Orlando was entranced.

4 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Orlando really hated this cat. He was becoming more and more convinced of its nature as an irredeemable force of unspeakable evil.

He glanced ruefully at the fallen tree, the pine needles scattered as expansively as imaginable. He really wasn't at all sure how they'd managed to make it across the hall into the kitchen.

The star lay amongst several shattered baubles. One of the presents was on a critical list.

And the stupid bloody feline just sat there and looked excessively self-satisfied. Cats were definitely not supposed to climb trees once they were already bejewelled with fully colour-coordinated decorations.

5 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Dominic listened to the old woman's conversation patiently, gauging the time passing with the tired patience of the enforcedly virtuous.

"...and, of course it was a very long time ago, but back in..."

He resisted the urge to look at his watch.

She said something else, and wandered off to the kitchen in search of something that she had undoubtedly told him in detail of, but of which he was in complete ignorance due to his boredom-induced lobotomy.

Monotony that cut like a knife.

Eventually she reappeared, bearing cake, and suddenly the hour of tedium seemed anything but futile.

6 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

They stood there and looked at it, the charred remains of a supermarket's finest, fresh from the plastic tub.

Carbonated fruit peel. Incinerated glacé cherries. Oxidised flaked almonds.

Orlando cleared his throat. "So. No Christmas pudding, then."

"Does anyone else want to know why the flames were green?"

Elijah shifted uneasily from foot to foot, and spared a moment to look reproachfully at Dom. He winced as he realised how attentively Billy had followed his gaze.

Billy continued. "Well I'd certainly like to know why we were dealing with green flames. What exactly did you pour over the pudding, Dom?"

7 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Orlando glared at the cat. The cat glared back at him.

He tried edging forwards slightly. The cat snarled a little, and curled forward over the present it was holding hostage, and the delicate feline ears twitched slightly in amused indignation.

Orlando eyed the pest's claws, the distractedly flicking tail, and decided upon a purely temporary retreat. He looked the cat up and down.

"That's my present, and you know it."

He thought then that maybe he saw the cat smile, thought he heard a taunting laugh inside his head, and a voice full of mocking, malevolence, and mellifluous superiority.

8 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

The present beeped.

High-pitched, electronic, unremitting, incessant...

The present beeped, although at the rate at which Elijah's nerves were disintegrating at the grating noise, it might not be for much longer. A present, that is. It might not be a present for much longer.

It might be a crumpled mass of paper and ribbon, with beepless circuitry crushed and sprinkled on top.

Picking up his jacket, he decided to leave the flat to resolve this particular problem itself. If it had any spirit, he felt sure it would helpfully arrange for the tree to fall destructively upon the pernicious parcel.

9 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Billy scampered across the apartment, clumsily falling from room to room, hurriedly swinging through each doorframe.

Finally he found it. In the back of Dom's wardrobe was the second present he'd found for himself, a perfect cube of blue striped store gift-wrapping, and Billy smirked to himself.

He deposited the present he'd already located, originally hailing from the top shelf of the cupboard next to the sink, behind the chips and dips, somewhere lost beneath an unopened packet of tricolore fettuccini. Picking up his new find, he marched back to the kitchen to provide the pasta with its new companion.

10 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

The present rattled slightly when shook, and Orlando wrestled with his conscience, that little voice that insisted he really shouldn?t be doing this.

The yellow wrapping paper was smooth beneath his fingers, and the pink ribbon ran elaborately around the long box, culminating in an all-too-perfect bow.

The door crashed open. Inconveniently indefinite paralysis overcame him.

Billy raised an eyebrow.

"I swear, I was, just moving... I was just moving the present over here, into the corner, where it would be safer..."

"I walk in on you wearing pigtails, and you're worried that I found you clutching someone else's present?"

11 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

This was getting beyond ridiculous.

Looking nervously about him, Billy raised his flashlight a little higher and peered into the gloom of the night. With the odd flavour of desperation he prayed with newly found faith that he would see nobody returning his examination of the park.

Awkwardly he skated forward across the solid lake, and cursed Dom and the ever-escalating battle of dares and forfeits they mutually inflicted.

A hotel corridor was one thing. Victorian drag on ice was another entirely.

He clutched the scratching wig to as close as possible to his scalp, and struggled not to fall.

12 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

The wonderfully filled-out tree rustled as Dominic stepped away from it.

"Isn't that just the biggest and best Christmas tree you have ever seen?" he announced, elbowing Elijah slightly in anticipation of a response.

Elijah attempted to placate him with what felt like a somewhat less than adequate and overly hesitant smile as he regarded the precariously balanced and inappropriately large tree.

"It's very nice."

Dominic evidently awaited more effusive approval for the evergreen.

"It's a wonderful, magnificent tree, it's very... bushy. It's just, well, you're really supposed to wait until the very end before putting the star on top."

13 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Orlando kicks the door open with one leg, balances carefully on the other, and takes especial care to ensure that his precious load is secure on its tray, held firmly with both hands.

He grins unabashedly at his slightly daunted cast mates, who he thinks should have become accustomed enough by now to his melodramatic entrances to not bother paying him any particular attention. They turn around and gawk, still, at each and every one of his antics.

Apart from occasionally Dom, but that's fine by Orlando.

He straightens up, and glides forward more sedately, offering around the piled-high doughnuts.

14 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

The green frog didn't so much as hop, as it did scarper in a very un-froglike manner. It was only a small thing, but it somehow managed to avoid looking lost on the vast coffee table.

It's a common misconception that frogs all go 'ribbit'. They don't at all, and this particular one made a vague cross between a bark and a croak.

Its round, protruding eyes goggled as it circled the half-full pint glass, and the red ribbon tied loosely around its middle streamed ostentatiously behind it.

"Um." Elijah eyed it worriedly. "It's lovely, Dom. Thank you so much."

15 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Billy looks up thoughtfully at the bells. He thinks they look a little lost.

The green ribbon that suspends the two shiny sparks of light curls at the edges. The bow is tied rather messily, and doesn't look at all reliable.

Billy wants to try to adjust it, but doesn't want to interfere with the quiet almost-noise. Billy wants to fix the dash of colour in the room so that it won't accidentally fall. He doesn't want to make the bow any worse, however, so he leaves it be, and hopes that Viggo finds the arrangement soon, and before Orlando.

16 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Orlando paused for the cameras, screaming fans in every direction.

His hair was perfect, his eyes alive. He wore a red and white striped long-sleeved shirt, and he was vaguely aware of Elijah having shaken his head despairingly at it.

He smiled over his shoulder to where his co-star was signing more and ever more autographs, distractedly rattling off a few himself as he did so.

He never worked out why he turned around, threw his elbows out at such a wild angle to pull his mouth out wide using each index finger. Stuck his tongue out. The cameras flashed.

17 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Elijah fell flat on his ass.

Skate-clad feet in the air, arms flailing, rolling onto his back and now off his ass, as the fall prolonged itself by working its way into becoming something of an inelegantly sprawling slide across the hard expanse of ice.

Elijah felt the motion catch at the bottom of his sweater and tug it up slightly. The powdered ice scraped away by a full day's skating clumped against the small of his back, and slowly began to melt just that little bit. Just that little bit, yet still one of the most infuriating sensations ever.

18 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Orlando looked up, squinting at the bright sunlight reflecting off the white of the snow. Far off on the mountainside he could make out a pair of small brown birds, also surveying their surroundings.

"Do you think they're in love?" he asked.

"What?"

"The birds, do you think they're in love?" he repeated, making vague indicating gestures.

Dom looked at him strangely, hardly sparing a glance at the two birds. "They're boring and ugly and don't seem to do anything but sit there. Of course they're in love."

Orlando was still watching them. "I don't think they're ugly at all."

19 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

When Elijah hits the drum with some real force behind the misshapen chopsticks sold as beaters, Billy can just about hear the dull thud from where he sits gritting his teeth in the next room.

Billy isn't quite sure why Elijah's finding such joy in the gift he thinks Sean's daughter won't now be receiving. It's just a round blue and red toy drum with a cord attached, to be hung around a child's, or Elijah's, neck.

The three other presents they bought lie neatly gift-wrapped at Elijah's feet, but the drum doesn't look to be joining them anytime soon.

20 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Orlando was making revoltingly loud fake smooching noises. Dominic seemed about to join in. Somehow he resisted, and dialogue ensued.

"Oh, gorgeous, would you look at that, here we are right bang under the mistletoe!" announced Dominic in a deep manly mocking voice.

"Well, dear sir, I'm sure I don't know what you're implying should happen now," Orlando riposted, waggling the effeminate character on his finger.

"Come here, darling, and give us a kiss," Dominic replied, lunging with his cloth covered finger.

With a shriek of protest as the only real sign of resistance, the two newt-like finger puppets embraced.

21 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

For some reason, Billy was quite sure he must look a complete and utter idiot.

The hotel corridor was a mere blur as he catapulted along it, a flash of blue and white striped pyjamas on purple roller skates. He clutched the skinny cuddly monkey toy close to him and tried not to trip over the tail.

He attempted to distract himself from his humiliation by trying to think up some magnificent stunt to exact retribution. Dom would pay for this.

He remembered he wasn't supposed to be distracting himself from his humiliation just after colliding with the pot plant.

22 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Elijah looked over to where his friend sat working intently at the table. "You can't give that to Viggo, it's obscene."

Just finishing, Orlando primped the blue polka dot bow tie, and fussed at the yellow wool hair. "It is not at all obscene. It is a work of art, and my present to Viggo."

The Jack-with-no-box wobbled on its large spring, gaping, with wide wild eyes and ridiculously manic smile of a stretched mouth. The elongated red nose contrasted rudely with the ill-green toning of the face.

Orlando hoped Viggo would like the maroon felt of the marionette's jacket.

23 Days To Go

See this entry for an explanation of this madness.

Billy squealed as his scarf flew out behind him, a streak of crimson cloth brightly swooshing down the hillside in their wake.

The bold material clung to Billy who clung to Dom who clung to Elijah who clung to Orli. Orli, who clung to the front of the toboggan itself, as they went hurtling down in the snow, furiously speeding away, futilely attempting to appease the persistent gravity.

Elijah's hat had earflaps. It wasn?t going anywhere that his head wasn't. It mourned Billy's scarf, even as the accessory fell behind, and was left, a dash of colour in the white.

24 Days To Go

For some reason, I have decided to drabble to my advent calendar. I might explain why (ie I might make up a reason) sometime later. But in the meantime I give you RPnotslash. At exactly 100 words.

Elijah sat in the bucket.

He wasn’t quite sure why, exactly, he was sitting in the bucket, but he was fast coming to the conclusion that it was not a thoroughly comfortable experience in the least.

The world span.

He thought maybe the bucket span with him, in the way that an inflexible cylinder of plastic will do when a weight is balanced upon it which it was not designed to contain.

It was a very green bucket, and Elijah toyed with the grey handle.

Maybe that last drink, drink number something, maybe that one hadn’t been such a good idea.

Good-boy Charlie

Fandom: The Italian Job (2003 version)
Pairing: Charlie/Steve (slash - don't read it if you don't like it)
Rating: PG13 angst
Summary: That scene at the restaurant.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Stampede Of Two

Wrote something. *grins proudly*. Yes, that's right, I wrote something that could actually be finished without the need for medication.

Title: Stampede of Two
Fandom: Lotrips
Pairing: david wenham/elijah wood
Rating: PG
Summary: "And then there was a hand at the small of his back, reassuring him."
Notes: Response to the working_blue 008 challenge to use the line in the summary.
Disclaimer: Not mine.