batyatoon | Ask me for a drabble!

keywords: dictionary, Alka-Seltzer, karate

"Guess what. That word in the curse you weren't sure of?" She held up the open dictionary. "It means 'indigestion.'"

He stared at her. "You're not serious."

She grinned at him smugly. "See for yourself."

He snatched the book and stared at the entry, then sagged back into his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't believe this."

"On the plus side," she said, standing up and reaching for her jacket, "if this ever happens again? Instead of tracking the demon down to kick its ass, we can just go buy a bottle of Alka-Seltzer."

Muffled: "You do that."

Awesome!

keywords: unlucky, trees, freeway

Just two acres left and the fences are down...

She's left her tree. There is nothing in the world more unlucky than to leave your tree. This is not something she has been taught; it is something she knows, something she has always known, running in her like sap.

But he hasn't come, and he hasn't come, and the construction on the new freeway will be coming through before the summer is over, and neither her tree nor any of the others will see another spring if he doesn't help them.

The first step from grass to concrete hurts like frost after a thaw.

Where are you now, Jack-in-the-Green?

She has to find him. Because nobody else will.

Because I'm evil...

Words: Oddment, blubber, tweak.

Universe: your pick

... I hate you.

Keywords: light, shadow, water.

(Because I am both predictable and yet not.)

He remembers the family vacation to Ariel, years ago. River couldn't have been older than five. Six? Five. Long time ago.

Swimming in a bioluminescent lake is like nothing else in the worlds. Water like light made liquid, so clear you can see underwater for what feels like miles. Coral forming an alien forest in a thousand subtle colors. A school of tiny fish surrounding you for a moment like a cascade of living jewels, their shadows dappling over your skin, and then gone.

River breaking the surface like a dolphin, glowing drops flinging from her hair, and letting out a treble shriek of joy. And Simon, catching her and swinging her high to splash down into the luminous water again, shouting laughter. And Regan, her own laughter quiet but no less joyful, turning to look at him in a brilliant moment of shared pride.

Long time ago.

Could you write something with Cordelia and Bothari? *looks hopeful*

Bothari stood there, stolid as ever, impassive now that he had delivered his news. The silence in the room seemed to spread outward until the entire house seemed stilled, like a castle under a curse in a fairytale.

Until she heard her own brittle voice, Cordelia wasn't sure she'd be able to break the silence. "He's all right now, then?" What a stupid question. He's fifteen and tried to cut his own wrists last month. He is not all right.

Bothari nodded. "Yes, milady." A pause. "You understand I couldn't ..."

"No, of course not. You were quite right not to send word of something like this by comm."

Oh dear God. I'll have to tell Aral.

Another short silence, and Bothari said awkwardly: "He is better. Milady."

Owen Burnett. All else is your call.

And speaking of call, wanna chat this afternoon or will you be busy getting ready for this evening?

The nursery is quiet, with only the tiny sound of a mortal infant breathing in its sleep. Owen leans over the crib, carefully draws the blanket away from Alexander's sleeping face.

He can remember laughing over countless other cradles: the wailing infant left hanging from a tree branch outside, or held elsewhere by willing accomplices while he took on a rude caricature of the baby's form, mocking at the mother's frustration. Eggs and crumbs and milk and grain, and sometimes the mother would know the charm and sometimes she wouldn't, and either way he would have his fun. Dancing off afterwards into the darkling woods with his cronies, turning somersaults and cartwheels in the air for the mere delight of it, hooting with glee.

There's no reason why this cradle should be any different. No real reason at all.

And it isn't the cradle that's different, of course. It's himself.

He keeps his movements quiet, heading for the door, and throws one more glance at the sleeping Alexander before stepping out into the hallway.

Hee.

Simon giving Tonks a checkup. 8 months gone or so.

:D?

[FINALLY picking these up again.]

Simon straightens, and starts to take off his gloves. "I'd say ... anytime in the next couple of weeks. He's definitely almost ready to come out."

"Is there anything I should be doing?" Tonks tries to sit up, with some difficulty, holding on to Bernard's arm.

"Nothing I can think of that you aren't already doing," Simon tells her. "Unless, ah ..." A bit hesitantly: "Is there anything, ah, unusual I should know about ... wizard births?"

"Well," says Bernard thoughtfully, "there's the usual chance of the mother turning into an armadillo in the stress of the moment, but you already know about that, so..."

Simon stares at him.

Bernard blinks. "You didn't already know about that? 'Dora, haven't you been telling him anything?"

Simon carries on staring, and Bernard manages to hold his expression of mild surprise for several seconds before it explodes into laughter.

HAHAHAHAHAAH GENIUS. LOVE.

Fandom: Gargoyles
Characters: Elisa, Fox
Keywords: devious, wager, cosplay

Mwahaha! :)

- Patrick

Elisa folded her arms across her chest and tried to settle her wings more comfortably around her shoulders to keep them from hitting the elevator wall. "This was easier last time," she muttered.

"Don't whine," Fox smirked. "You won the wager, after all."

"This wasn't my idea!" Elisa protested, and silently cursed Puck and his devious grin for what felt like the fiftieth time in the past hour.

The elevator binged and its doors slid open, revealing not the hotel lobby but an upstairs corridor, and a couple of Japanese tourists entered. They stared a bit at the two women -- or rather, the one woman and the one gargoyle.

One of them asked a timid question in Japanese as the elevator started moving again. Fox smiled and said something soothing and mostly incomprehensible, in which Elisa caught the words "otaku" and "cosplay." Both the tourists brightened and said "Ah!" in tones of comprehension.

Elisa gritted her teeth and shifted her wings again.

*grins* Milliways. A Snow and kids futurefic, and because I'm intensely evil at times and knew it had to be used at some point when I read it in canon, Wade says "I'm sorry I was bad, Mommy."

Snow covered her eyes with one hand. "You did what?"

Wade had gone semi-invisible again. "I'm sorry I was bad, Mommy."

"That was cute when you were four," Snow said dryly. "At twelve it starts to sound a little disingenuous. And stop that."

He reappeared, and squirmed a little in his seat.

"Mom, nothing happened," Millie said defensively. "The stupid squid didn't even wake up till we were gone."

"The two of you are going to apologize to Bernard." Wade winced, and Snow continued inexorably. "And to Sunshine Dust."

"What?"

"Moooom!"

Snow lifted a finger, and the twins immediately went silent.

*laughs too hard to type for several minutes*

*tries not to think about possible explanations*

Fandom: Milliways
Characters: Simon and Andrew
Setting: Outside
Event: watching River and Meg dance

The conversation's slow, punctuated as it is by the moments when they both just stop talking to watch.

"So Meg was Anthy's, ah, protector before River?"

"Sort of. It's a little complicated...oh," and Andrew's voice softens just a touch, "oh, that's just nice."

The twilight sky is a deep melting blue, soft and luminous. Sparks of soft golden-green light are beginning to glimmer in and out under the trees by the lake: two, five, a dozen, too many to count. They swing about in changing patterns, weaving their own dance around the two young women.

Simon blinks, his voice low and wondering. "Fireflies."

River's eyes shine in the dusk, and she turns and spins with her hands held high as though to catch the tiny stars. Meg catches her eye and smiles, and incorporates the same movement into her own dance.

It's nearly two minutes before either man, lover or brother, says another word.

Ophelia and Simon meeting again. River not around. Ophelia in a sane sort of mood.

[...I don't know if I can write Ophelia. o.O]

Simon and Kaylee.

Kaylee taking Simon home to meet the parents.

:D

"Look, I don't know --" Simon protests feebly.

"Calm down," Kaylee tells him, for what may be the fifth time, reaching over to straighten his vest unnecessarily. "It ain't like they don't know what to expect. I've written 'em about you."

He looks, if possible, even more daunted. "You have?"

"Oh ... once or twice." A pause. "...a month." Another pause, with a laugh trembling at the corners of her mouth. "...for about a year."

"...I see." Simon bites his lower lip, and looks at her warily, sidelong. "And, ah, did any of these letters involve me being...?"

"...a boob?" she finishes for him, brightly.

He buries his face in one hand. "Do you think maybe I ought to just break my own kneecaps and save your parents the trouble?"

"Don't be silly," Kaylee scolds, ruffling his hair. "They like you already. ...And anyway, there weren't so much of that kind of letters, lately."

He looks up. "No?"

Her smile's a softer thing now, the laughter melting into a quiet content. "Not hardly at all."

"Oh." His own smile comes out, tentative at first, then deepening. "...That's good."

Doublecasting Enrico Colantoni:

Veronica Mars/Galaxy Quest crossover.

Mal. Simon. Target practice. -beams-

Sunlight gleams off the empty glass bottle balanced carefully on a fence post, somewhere on the Reynolds ranch on Shadow.

Bang. Bang. A pause. Bang.

The bottle's still there, shining in the sunlight.

Simon lowers the gun in frustrated annoyance. "All right, what am I doing wrong?"

"Well, for starters," Mal says, "you ain't braced right. Recoil keeps pushin' your gun hand just a bit up and to the side. You're gonna have to either fix that or start compensatin' for it, which I would not recommend, as it'll mean you gotta learn to aim all over again each time you pick up a new gun."

"I don't exactly plan on picking up guns that often." Simon's voice is just a bit thin.

Mal folds his arms. "Lot of stuff happens we don't exactly plan on, doctor."

Simon lets out a tiny puff of air that might be a snort or an infant laugh. "Isn't that the truth."

"Okay, try again. This time brace from the shoulder. Gun tries to move your whole arm when you fire it; don't let it. You're the one says when to move. Not the gun."

The younger man nods, and takes aim at the bottle again.

Bang.

keywords: barbecue potatoe chip, stars

characters: Chianna and Chrichton

"...Okay, so a barbecue is when you cook meat outside over a fire," Chiana said. "These are meat?"

"No, no. They're made of potatoes. A vegetable." Crichton leaned back on the poolside chair, looking up at the sky. It was clouding over. No stars.

"And they cook them outside over a fire?" She held one of the chips between her fingers, and cocked her head at it dubiously.

"No, they deep-fry them. Barbecue's just what they call the flavoring."

"Oh." She bit into the chip and chewed for a moment, then spat violently onto the grass and grabbed for her drink.

"What?"

She swallowed, and stared at him in horror. "You people eat that dren? Like, on purpose?"

Crichton chuckled. "Guess it's an acquired taste, Pip."

Oh, that's perfect. Chi would so do that with earth-food she didn't like.

subliminal message: you will write me more Farscape fanfic...you will write me more Farscape fanfic...

keywords: "country music" "fusion drive"

Characers: Han Solo, Captain America,

Condition: Must not revolve around how they wound up in the same universe.

Event: Mario is missing.

'Fraid I don't know enough about Captain America. Or Mario for that matter. Perfectly willing to abide by the condition, if you toss me another non-SW character. :)

Andrew taking ballet, post-Milliways.

Yay! Drabbles! I love drabbles!

Firefly, Wash and Mal, secrets

or Andrew, post-Chosen, regrets

Mal thinks we don't know.

Which is kind of okay with me. If there's one conversation I don't ever want to have, it's probably that one. Say, Mal, not to be nosy, but were you really gonna space him? And as long as I'm asking unhealthy questions, how come you didn't?

All I'm saying is, Jayne didn't lock himself in the airlock. Even if he were that stupid -- which, okay, is not totally beyond the possible -- somebody must've left the radio by the door.

It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. Mal figures Jayne called the Feds, and decides to have a little talk with him about it. While breaking atmo. And oh yeah: with the outer door controls disabled from the inside.

I don't know if he did it. I don't know if Mal still thinks he did it. And I don't know if Simon knows.

And I think those are all things I can live a long and productive time without knowing.

Oh, lovely. Thank you!

*grins*

Write me the Lost Weekend?

Kaylee under stress of some kind.

Something with the trio, please and thank you?

All right, I'm giving in to my sappy tendencies. *grin*

Characters: Wash, Zoe
Event: First kiss
Keywords: dust, train tracks, Earth-That-Was

[As promised: two drabbles for the price of one! And first, the one you didn't request, because it wants out.]

Serenity's bridge is barely lit, this time of ship's night. Almost everyone on board is either asleep or trying to be, but someone's got to take the night shift.

Wash doesn't mind. And tonight he's got company.

"You see those?" He bounces the small bundle in his arms, just slightly. "Hey, pay attention. This is important. See those?"

Cloudy dark-blue eyes blink up at him. He turns slightly and adjusts his armful of infant, so that both he and the baby face forward into the black, and points.

"Those are the stars."

He hoists the baby a little higher, rests his cheek against downy-soft hair dark as the unending night outside.

"And every one of 'em's yours."

[And now the one you asked for.]

"...knew a guy once who had model train tracks all over his cockpit. No model trains to go with them, mind you, just the tracks. Seriously. Said he liked rearranging them." Wash shrugged, and replaced the toy stegosaurus over the long-range scanner. "Everybody's got a right to their own personal and sometimes questionable tastes. I like dinosaurs."

"And hideous brightly-colored shirts," Zoe added from where she was leaning against the railing.

"Do I make personal comments about your choices in clothing?" He paused thoughtfully. "Well, no, because you'd break me in half. Look, the point is: some people like weird, and there's no explaining why."

Zoe was smiling, and really it was astonishing what that smile did to her eyes. "You might have something there."

In two long strides she came up beside the pilot's chair, and in one smooth continuous movement she bent, kissed him firmly on the mouth, straightened, turned, and swept out of the room.

One of Wash's hands came up and felt his lips tentatively, as if expecting to find them bruised. There was a silence of several seconds, then:

"...what?" He half-stood, turning to stare over his shoulder at Zoe's retreating back. "Wait, what?"

Faith teaching Simon self-defense. Because it's a FUNNY image.

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Slayerverse drabble: Aftermath

Re: Slayerverse drabble: Aftermath

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Looking for Jack

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... don't ask, I don't know either.

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