Current mood:	may't
Entry tags:	fic, harrowdown, nml

oh my god i swear to god my attention span has finally died. like. kaput! that's it. gone. away down the drain with my grades and my enthusiasm for the sciences and my identity as a renaissance woman. that last is a lie, i don't paint.

have some six month old drabbles: the kiss-fic challenge, finally completed. i am sorry that i am spamming the shit out of you people, but it is how i am staying awake, let alone, er, functioning. 'functioning' is like a funny dream at this point. sorted by canon, roughly.

Actual Fandoms

It's the middle of the night, and they're both a couple of cups in when Ted says, "You know, Booster. You know what."

"Yeah?" Booster says, putting his feet up on the table, then realizing that his feet were already up on the table and that he's falling gently backwards. He catches himself. "Maybe. What?"

"You're not," Ted says. He waves a hand. "As bad. You know when I say things like, 'I hate you stop touching that go to hell I want you to die,' and all of it, yeah... You know it's, you know, it's not literal."

"You meant it that time we went to hell," Booster points out with great delicacy. "You said it. You said 'I mean it this time.'"

"That was different, moron," Ted mutters, and Booster has to concede this point. "It's just. You know. You know I'm ... you know."

"Yeah," admits Booster, slinging an arm around him. "I know. Come on, time for bed."

Ted leans heavily into it. "You know you're not--" he says, and then, deciding that the end of the sentence is too much effort, just tries to stand up. Instead he falls over, all over Booster, and once Booster's stopped swearing and Ted's stopped laughing a little hysterically, Ted kisses him. It doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't last very long, and it smells terrible, but--

"Bed," Booster says, tugging him back upright. "You need your beauty sleep. You look like Max after he has to deal with lawyers."

"Sure," says Ted, and kisses him sloppily right inside his ear, just for luck.

~
( for Meej, Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton )
~
( for Zoe, Wilfred Owen/Siegfried Sassoon )
~

left on Sixsmith's dorm bed

Dear My very dear annoying You bastard Bloody hell, Sixsmith.

Can't say that was unexpected. Can't say it was unenjoyable. My guerilla campaign of seduction has weakened the knees of lesser men! I point out that your technique needs work, but am sure that it will improve with further practice. Must find something appealing about all that fumbling because have enclosed a bloody sonata.

Most unfair that you didn't let me kiss you first.

-- Frobisher


Original Characters

Thierry doesn't have singer pitch, or magical psychic powers like the groundlings believe, so she won't learn until the third try as Georgianna moves along the hollow of her throat and Thierry tugs her up to brush their lips together, hard, brief, and warm, that she kisses in A major.

~

He is only amused when Avery goes slackjawed, like any idiot boy, around Baker in her leather and silk. Yes Eichel is a human male and yes it is very impressive the way she pours herself into the black dresses, straps on those heels that leave holes in the ground, but he knows a weapon when he sees one.

He understands Rogers a little better, the silence that pulls him in. Baker too-brittle or too-still: Eichel does not draw his arms around her, he does not suddenly become unprofessional, but it is not so different a thing to let his hand drift down to the trigger of his gun and wonder who he ought to be taking care of.

No. For Eichel it is the whiskey-blurred memory of their first, how she undid everything but his tie and left lipstick prints on the underside of his chin. It is the way that she shoots, carefully careless, as though she is not looking. With perfect accuracy. Through the head, every time.

~

I Earn Myself Socks, And Then Lose Them

It was in Georgia that we met with the 45th Georgian. They were a sorry sight and very disorganized, but seeing as we were brethren in the eyes of God and Jeff Davis, I sat down by a likely campfire. We played a game of cards, for although gambling is a devilish pasttime, it is sorry and hard to avoid any sort of entertainment when you can't scarce move for soreness of the feet. My hosts were called Joshua Calhoun and Hayes. Hayes played a sharp hand, but by the end of the evening I had all of Joshua Calhoun's earthly goods in hock.

We were very much in cups at this point. Joshua, a pretty boy of sixteen or downwards, said he'd pay me any sort of forfeit. Well, says I, what sort of forfeits are usually employed in the 45th? I soon found out, and after the laughing was over, I had to admit that Joshua Calhoun was every bit as good a kisser as any woman save my Jennie. He blushed more after, too, but with less reason.

~

James holds up his hands. "It was one night. I don't know why you're so worried about a repeat performance."

"It is not acceptable," Felix protests. "And if I went and defiled myself with the midget?"

After ten minutes James is still laughing himself sick, so Felix points a finger at him, jabs it into his chest to make things clear, and then strides over to where the rich bastard and the midget are regaling their pretty boy with some useless tale of the latest heist. "You," Felix tells Joshua Calhoun, lifting the thing to its feet with one hand. "Hold still."

At least he kisses like a girl, and after the first moment of confusion goes happy and pliant in Felix's hands, while the turncoat turns steadily more and more red.

Then Hayes begins to yell at high volume, and James pulls Felix away by the back of his shirt. "Point made," he growls, "now get out of the bar."

Felix wipes the back of his mouth with his hand and says, "I am glad we could come to an agreement."

~

He shows up on the street all entitled and imperialist-oppressor, see, so it's only a matter of time before they take him down. Give the little Brit credit, he puts up a proper fight, all nails and teeth and none of that usual pansy nonsense about fisticuffs; his daemon hurls herself at Georgie and nearly takes his eyes out with her claws, but he's only an English boy and when the rest of the Irish are licked and in retreat James gets him to the ground. Behind them Mairead pins Thomas' daemon at the scruff of her neck, and when she turns into a snake Mairead laughs and pushes harder with one easygoing paw.

James stares down at Thomas the English boy, and for a long moment neither of them say anything, not even uncle like Thomas ought to, and then he bends down awkwardly and makes an attack on Thomas' mouth. They kiss once, twice, Thomas' daemon pulling away, three times, and then Thomas scuttles back and says, "You kiss like an Irishman," in his stupid English voice, and runs off down the street.

And only looks back once or twice, 'cos he's useless, ain't he? After all.

~

He speaks with a quiet accent. Not American, but ubiquitous, half-invisble; a lingering on the as and a casual disregard for the different fricatives. He calls himself, for example, Thom, and Thomas can hear the distinction enough to tolerate the nickname.

But his fingers are long, and his attention in class is unwavering, and his comments eviscerate but pretend to do so politely: less tolerable. Thomas has to do hardly any work to hate him properly. They share three classes and in each Thomas gets more silent, more sullen, as Thom gets more brilliant and accurate and violent against the whole study of biology.

After a suitable period of observation, Thomas begins again to perform, but (his methods stolen) he does it poorly and with little success. Nonetheless: the quiet that means anger instead of silence. Thomas watches the tight curve of his opponent's back, the bright flush in his cheeks when he appropriates the chemicals in science classes. Opponent; not adversary, because adversary implies a will to it, and what makes Thomas want to leave fingerprints in Thom's throat more than anything else is that Thom has not once bothered to parry him.

Thomas finds him, one long day, behind the chemical sheds, smoking and toeing diagrams into the dirt, and borrows a cigarette and then a light. "You're better than me," he tells Thom, and Thom says, "Yes, obviously," and Thomas says, "If I poison your drink, you'll never become the ruler of the known world," and Thom says, "You'd never do time for murder," and Thomas says, grinding the butt into the dirt, "Without the lust this would be much less complex."

Then Thom laughs, short and sharp and unexpected.

When they kiss it's eventual but not inevitable, both being careful, both being sweet-- gentility cruel because dishonest-- and Thomas loses this again by being the first to draw blood.

~

It's coincidence, really, Angelique dragging him to a club that is streaked in glitter and pounding techno, and he has a headache after ten minutes and is enjoying himself after fifteen, and a boy buys him a long succession of drinks, and then they kiss, and it's the kind of kiss that would be good even were he, at the time, sober.

"You kiss like somebody I used to know," really-it's-Thomás says, his hands tight in Thomas Beech's collar. "Is it mutual?"

"No," says Thomas Beech, remembering. "It was more fun."

Thomas Moore executes a pout.

~

"Yes, I know you," Juilliard says, leaning back against the opposite desk. The library is quiet around them. "You once gave a friend of mine a very difficult time."

"He's better now," Thom says, bending industriously into his book. He doesn't bother to say: go away.

Juilliard doesn't bother to say: not a chance. "So I've heard. We'll pay three times what the States are paying you."

Thom raises his eyes. "Who says they're paying me?"

"Not more than three," Juilliard murmurs. "We can't afford it."

The boy ducks his head back into the book. From behind its shelter: "I don't -- like talking money."

"I'm sure that's true," Juilliard says, "but you'll have to, eventually, when you sell those bioweapons. Won't you?"

Now Thom is agitated, doing the frightened-deer head tilt, attracting attention; who is this rude man bothering you, Mr. Trebond? which will only be annoying. Juilliard sighs, and leans in. If he wants attention--

Thom tugs back. "What did you do that for!"

Too loud, Juilliard notes, and not intentionally. "Because now you're listening," he says. "Properly, I mean. Wear lip gloss, you'll chap less." And sails out of the room.