Groggy and Cranky, But Perking Up My Ears
Apr. 25th, 2006 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowFor some reason (most likely hormone related), I'm ultra touchy today, ultra cranky and lethargic. Little things are setting me off and I hate that. Instead of going home and exercising yesterday, I went home and slept like the dead, went to the grocery store, then came home and fixed dinner and watched West Wing. Josh!! And Sam. Dude, I didn't even know I had missed Sam. Loved the president/president elect conspiracy, love that Donna knows she can't work for Josh, knows that CJ can still put on the voice of God voice, and so, so loved Sam standing in the room with Santos, kind of looking at him, saying. "Big fan." in that very Sam voice. It was better than either of the Leo tribute shows which made me terribly, terribly sad and almost make me wish they hadn't tried so hard, had let Leo's loss seep into things, tinge things if they couldn't truly do a wake.
The doldrums are partly the refusal of the weather to really be springy, my own personal self-doubts, and the whole "I'm an only child and both my parents are in ill health" thing. Although my mom is kind of cruising in her recovery. She's watched half the season of Gilmore Girls and has alphebatized her CDs:) I need to set up her journal soon before she starts bouncing off the walls.
Speaking of which, new episode of SMRT-TV is out, and features a look at Leo through the lens of the Season 1 DVDs. Go sign up in the forums and reminisce.
So, in an effort to shake myself out of my doldrums and this wretched mood, I'll take the first 10 drabble prompts. I should finish the last section of my LA story, but it's too exhausting today. So, any fandom. And yes, I know whenever I offer to do this, someone gets missed, but you might get lucky and get in on the game when my momentum is high and I'm looking for happy distractions:)
And should there be anyone out there looking to write me a distraction, a FS/Anything crossover would be lovely, as would a post-Suns and Lovers flirtation drabble.
The doldrums are partly the refusal of the weather to really be springy, my own personal self-doubts, and the whole "I'm an only child and both my parents are in ill health" thing. Although my mom is kind of cruising in her recovery. She's watched half the season of Gilmore Girls and has alphebatized her CDs:) I need to set up her journal soon before she starts bouncing off the walls.
Speaking of which, new episode of SMRT-TV is out, and features a look at Leo through the lens of the Season 1 DVDs. Go sign up in the forums and reminisce.
So, in an effort to shake myself out of my doldrums and this wretched mood, I'll take the first 10 drabble prompts. I should finish the last section of my LA story, but it's too exhausting today. So, any fandom. And yes, I know whenever I offer to do this, someone gets missed, but you might get lucky and get in on the game when my momentum is high and I'm looking for happy distractions:)
And should there be anyone out there looking to write me a distraction, a FS/Anything crossover would be lovely, as would a post-Suns and Lovers flirtation drabble.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
a prompt
Date: 2006-04-25 05:37 pm (UTC)Firefly. ;).
Re: a prompt
Date: 2006-04-25 06:38 pm (UTC)*
If it had been anyone else who asked, anyone but Kaylee, she wouldn't have agreed, wouldn't be sitting here on this thin blanket, holding a cup of cold tea, wishing it was something hot, whiskey or coffee or anything else. The grass underneath the blanket isn't exactly green, is a pale wheatish yellow grown too tall out here in these rolling fields. They could have been in town, sitting in a cafe but there wasn't a real port and Mal hadn't wanted to pay the docking fee in the private field near town. And besides, Kaylee had asked for a picnic. She'd wanted someplace warm, and springy, she'd said. Someplace nice. No one much has the heart to tell her no.
Kaylee lolls against Simon, his fingers gentle on her knee and picks through the protein sandwiches she's put together for all of them. Protein with fake butter, with fake hoisin, with fake tomatoes, protein plain, protein with pickles that they'd gotten in trade. Simon takes what he's given, watching Kaylee's face, ignoring the food.
At the edge of the hill, River walks circles in the grass, bare feet pressing down the stalks in careful and it's easier to watch her dancing patterns into the vegetation than it is to watch Mal sit cross-legged and awkward, a careful distance from Inara with her easy grace. Easier than watching Simon and Kaylee and the newness, that raw, bright love. River's madness has dissipated somewhat, but her fierce concentration remains and Zoe doesn't mind tracing it, keeping track as it unfurls on the stalks of grass under the pale sunshine. She's held tight to that sort of concentration, held tight to a singular sort of focus since Wash died. She can ignore the soft whispers in her ear, the gentle teasing, the low thrum of love and absence.
She spends time with Jayne, more than anyone, when she isn't alone. He can be counted on to say something foolish, more often than not, but it's meant with blunt kindness, and easily met with equally blunt fists.
Mal's unusually silent on the subject of loss.
But it's River who holds her gaze, who moves with youthful grace and couched awareness, who looks at Zoe with knowledge, and with honesty, who can say, "I'm sorry he's gone," and mean only that.
Still,this is not how she would have pictured her life, pictured these plucked moments, here on the edge of a field, tea in her hands and sun at her back. And for now, she's looking to reconcile past , future and the places in between.
Re: a prompt
Date: 2006-04-25 06:44 pm (UTC)Re: a prompt
Date: 2006-04-25 06:48 pm (UTC)Re: a prompt
Date: 2006-04-25 10:26 pm (UTC)Re: a prompt
Date: 2006-04-25 10:30 pm (UTC)also:
Date: 2006-04-25 05:43 pm (UTC)I was sorry to miss this one, because of Sam. Though beyond your comments and a brief TWOP scan, and I really loopless on recent seasons.
Re: also:
Date: 2006-04-25 05:44 pm (UTC)Re: also:
Date: 2006-04-25 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-04-25 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 10:10 pm (UTC)She's got one booted foot up on his desk, waiting patiently for what's to come. He wishes she were just a little nervous, wishes even for the edgy mania, for the incessant chatter she used to use to distract them all, to run her con, pull her switch.
But somewhere between self-sacrifice and self-preservation she'd found calm, found silence and stillness and watchfullness. It was discomfiting, disconcerting.
Jackson stands in the corner near the doorway, arms crossed hard over his body like he can hold in all the anger, all the outrage.
Mitchell unsteeples his hands, flicks at the corner of the burgundy passport, flips it open to see her dark hair and white teeth and wide eyes. The name underneath is Linda Seton. He doesn't know where she got it, bets it's from a movie. They'd Netflixed a bunch of stuff for her after they hadn't all died, hadn't lost the universe. After they'd lost her child. Movies and a place in the band were about all they'd had left to offer her in trade.
"What?" she says finally. "It's not like you'll take me wherever I want to go. This world requires documentation."
"So you made one for yourself? Made six?"
She shrugs, mouth quirking up in a hint of her old mischief.
"Daniel asked earlier. They said no."
Mitchell glances up, Jackson gives him a brief nod and the whole thing reminds Cameron of arguments with his mother and his sister, something about the spirit and the letter of the law.
"Didn't occur to you to tell her not to make her own?"
Jackson smiles sourly. "I can't think of everything. She's apparently a whiz at Photoshop."
Mitchell gathers the passports back up into a stack. He wants to say that he'd hoped that after everything she'd trust them, that she'd follow their rules, that she wouldn't turn this new hobby into a business enterprise.
But she's right. This world requires proof of identity, proof of citizenship and as open as the US Government was to recruiting aliens to work for them, it wasn't to hot on making them citizens, with the rights and responsibilities therein.
And he thinks, pushing the stack of passports back over to Vala, he'd want whatever options he could afford himself on a potentially hostile planet.
Maybe he wishes that they weren't so hostile. Maybe he wishes there weren't things here, there and everywhere to fear.
"I… we'd appreciate it if you didn't go anywhere without…letting someone know."
It's a grace, a concession. He doesn't have to say that they'd stop her. They both take it as a given.
She tucks the documents into the front of her shirt and swings her leg down off the table.
"It's about options, darling," she says, voice hard and tight. "A girl needs to have options." Her gaze flicks to Daniel, flicks back to Mitchell and he rubs his mouth, looks back at her.
Options, and right now she's uncovering hers. He can respect that. Her hips sway as she walks towards Daniel, fingers brushing his cheek. He scowls at her, but uncrosses his arms, matches her pace as they leave the room without being dismissed, without asking to go. He watches the movement of her body and wonders when those options are going to quit including his team.
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Date: 2006-04-25 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 11:41 pm (UTC)I like her determination to keep options open, and their recognition of that - that she needs it as more than a toy, even if that's the pattern of the mask she wears.
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Date: 2006-04-25 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 07:02 pm (UTC)"You..." he starts to say something else, swallows, "You look lovely." It's a stupid thing to say, but he means it.
Pink tinges her cheeks and he looks at his hands. "I'm getting married," he offers up, sudden and abrupt, looking for the ace in the deck and Donna's mouth stretches into a wide smile.
"That's nice," she says. "I hope you'll be happy."
Sam nods, undoes his tie and slides it off, curls it into a precise ball and places it on the table. They can both hear Josh in the bedroom, rifling through drawers, searching for bathing trunks and socks that aren't black.
"I'm sure he doesn't own sunscreen," Donna says. "He's going to burn."
Sam smiles at her, and leans forward. "He'll be okay. He'll probably stay in the hotel room and drink cheap drinks and pass out before he's finished dinner."
"I'm glad you'll be here," she says. And he can tell she means it, just not in the way she maybe used to. "He's going to need someone who can tell him no. And who wants to tell him yes."
There's a tinge there, a trace of something warm and fierce. "Are you going to take the job.. with Mrs. Santos?" he asks.
"Yes," she says. "I am... I think. No. I am."
There's more silence, then the sound of Josh's electric razor, and a "Whoa." Then more silence. "Almost done," he calls.
Neither Sam nor Donna answer, not when it sounds like the bag falls to the ground, or the water runs, or shoes are thrown against the wall.
"I'm going with him," Donna says finally, looking Sam in the eye. He's a test, but he's always been a good place to start.
"Good," he says, and his smile stretches out.
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Date: 2006-04-25 07:31 pm (UTC)"He's going to need someone who can tell him no. And who wants to tell him yes."
I hadn't thought, when I asked, that of course, they'd be the two people who love Josh most in the world that he would be the focus of the conversation but *of course* he is.
And the little bits of the unseen Josh -- the whoa and the shoes -- are making me giggle madlessly.
And Sam as the test! Yes!
Thank you for sending me out to luch with a great big silly grin on my face. Mwah!
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Date: 2006-04-25 07:37 pm (UTC)I was totally giggling to myself when Josh was harrassing Sam on the phone to get on the plane, saying his finacee was likely to do lots of things for Sam that Josh wouldn't. Thinking, yeah right!!
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Date: 2006-04-25 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 11:17 pm (UTC)Oh, this is PERFECT.
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Date: 2006-04-25 11:33 pm (UTC)WW is so hard to nail, dialogue wise. But Sam is always a little awkward, when he's not saying the most perfect things, and Donna is learning stillness and it's sort of lovely:)
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Date: 2006-04-25 07:56 pm (UTC)***
It's nice to have an extra pair of hands here with her, not that they're her hands, but hands on her girl, on Serenity and Crichton's hands are steady.
He's got the spanner jammed into the rotation cuff while she reroutes the power couplings.
"She's a beauty," he says as he watches her braid and splice, watches as she nuzzles the crest of the engine, coaxing her girl with new breath.
"She's the best," Kaylee agrees, then hurries on. "Your ship's real fine, too, but Serenity...she's special."
Crichton changes his angle, changes the pressure while he unscrews the bold from the thruster casings. "Different purposes," he says. "She was a research vessel. I...built her from scratch, to test a theory."
That makes Kaylee smile, somehow. "You're gonna tell Wash what to do, right? Tell him how to get Serenity to open that door, take us all through."
His frame stills, tightens and he angles his head, looks at her straight. She puts down the soldering iron. Swallows rough and hard.
"Honey, you know that's not how it's gonna work."
Her eyes feel hot and glassy, and she presses her knee to the low hanging curve of her girl's engine. Takes some comfort there.
"That skimmer's a piece of junk, won't go through a wormhole," she sniffs. "Not if it's anything like you said."
"We'll tie it up tight, and Aeryn'll pilot. She's the best around." His voice is full and tight with pride. "She hates my module, but she'll fly it true. Fly us all home."
"Not home for Simon and River," she says, low and hard, feeling raw, feeling lost and mean and needy. "Not even their 'verse."
John puts down the coupler and squats in front of her. He puts a hand on her knee. His knuckles are dirty, fingernails cracked and there's a cut on his cheek.
"They aren't gonna make it if they stay here with you. Might have a chance with us."
There's nothing left to say. No one's asked her how she feels about this leaving. No one's asked her if she'd want to come along. She doesn't think she'd abandon her Captain, abandon her girl, but the point is that no on has asked. Maybe they know and don't want to hear it spoke loud.
"We've only got one chance to go through it the wormhole opens when and where I think it will. This ship's gotta catch the solar flare and she can only do that if she's fast as she can be."
His eyes glint blue in the dark and Kaylee thinks about his wife, her dark hair and her closed off eyes, the way her nails bite into Crichton's hand and the way he leans into her space, arm against the swell of her belly. She thinks about Simon, about River, and about the running, all the running they've been doing and those blue men...and the blood. There was a lot of blood, tears and crying, and blood.
"She'll be as fast as you need her to be," she says, soft and fierce, and feels like a grownup. Fills lost and sick and ready for it to be something past, something done.
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Date: 2006-04-25 08:23 pm (UTC)Excellent, as usual. Can't wait to see what leads up to this.
Now, I think I must go read Citrine again.
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Date: 2006-04-26 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 10:48 pm (UTC)He sat on one of her chairs, bare feet propped on the edge of her bed while she lounged at the other end, propped up by her pillow, hair loose and clean, thin tank and loose pants covering her body. Her feet were bare as well, one foot tucked under her body, the other outstretched. The pants rucked up a little against the coverlet, showing the fine curve of her ankle bone, the line of pale skin. He wanted to kneel down, hold her ankle in his hand, pull her forward to him, surround himself in her breath and weight and scent.
Right now, the moment was easy and lax, merely dangling the possibility of stretching into something that could be weighted and heavy. Sure, the day had started with talk of sex and loss and death, but it was ending - unexpectedly - with laughter. In the face of everything, laughter was a gift, something to reach for, to hold.
"I thought he'd go right through the bulk head, kept ramming her, finally shoved a rag in her mouth to shut her up."
Aeryn tilted up the bottle of rilsa he'd secured from the station, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and leaned forward to pass it to him. Her lips tilted in an amused smile.
"Trust the lot of you to end up with a religious fanatic magnetized to a commerce station wall."
She shook her head, but didn't lose the small smile. He snorted, "Thought Pilot was going to lose it there when he spaced her. Cat's gotta a streak of poetic irony in him."
She grinned widely at that, her smile starburst bright in the small chamber and his pulse beat hard, knees went to jelly, heart clenched. Thought of moments, so many moments basking in that wide, wild grin. The moment shifted taut, ease turning to the purity of want. Christ, he was just so goddamned happy to be able to see her smile.
Barriers be damned, he thought, let his feet fall to the floor. He must have said her name, saw the grin drop, the wattage dim, fading to something that burned just as hot, but lower, ultraviolet instead of starry.
She tilted up her head, eyes shrewd and wanting as he stood in front of her, as he reached for the curve of her neck, the silk of her hair. Her breath was warm against his belly and there was no way to couch his reaction. She smiled wide again, feral and needy, put her hand on his hip.
He bent at the waist, awkward and helpless and kissed her, kissed away the smile and the want and the need. Felt her teeth and her tongue and the grip of her fist as she scratched against his skin, and then let go. Back up, back off, backed away.
"Fluid levels," he breathed, scowled, whimpered. She folded her other leg to her body, watched him with wide angry eyes.
"Self-service," she said, throwing back his phrasing, throwing back his words, but her mouth was gentle.
"Good night," he said, low in his throat, and left before he could change his mind, figured out how to change hers.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 11:22 pm (UTC)It is, yes.
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Date: 2006-04-25 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 11:28 pm (UTC)***
She thinks of many things as she pilots the transport through the expanse of stars - thinks of her first time in a cockpit, of teaching John to fly this ship, of the repairs that need attending to in the morning, of the meeting they've arranged with a local alliance of traders and militia in a nearby system. Mostly she thinks of how long it's been since either she or John has slept through the night. Sleep is a taunt, a drugging, dragging lure that she wants more than sex, or peace or freedom.
Every night, they're torn from its welcome confines by piercing shrieks. Only movement will still the screams.
"It's normal," he says, scrubbing blearily at his face as he stumbles with her to the pod, wiping tears and snot away from their son's face. "He's teething, he's growing, it'll be okay."
She doesn't know whether or not to believe him, but he's as tired as she and if he can see an end in sight, she'll hold to that. Still, she makes him get up with her, and does the same for him.
Aeryn glances over at the co-pilot's seat. John is strapped in, has their son in a sling against his chest. John's head lolls back as he snores, but D'Argo watches her with patient, blinking eyes. He's content to be snugged close to his father, watching the stars. His hair is a dark shock against his smooth baby skin, against John's pale neck. Even in sleep, John's arm cradles the boy, his other hand resting on his knee, palm open towards her.
It's a pattern of how their life has been, how it will go. She will steer them forward, and John will hold them close. Balance, the shifting duties of love.
She turns the pod, brings them back around starboard, brings them home, docks gently. John doesn't wake when she slips D'Argo out of his grasp, holds him to her breast, lets him eat.
John blinks at her, running his hand over her face, eyes soft and vulnerable as he watches them in the ambient light of the pod. " 'S a beautiful thing," he says, and she purses her mouth, doesn't disagree. It's an odd dichotomy, her son's warm milky scent in the confines of the pod, Moya's clean yeasty smell, components and mechanics, engines and oil, her own scent, the trace of John's skin that lingers on her own from moments spent pressed tight and close.
Her child curls his small fists, pulls away from her breast and kicks out with his foot, stretches and yawns. She holds him up, pats his back, wipes up the spittle, adjusts her shirt.
They walk to their quarters, a long slow trudge through the quiet hallways. John wraps his arm around her shoulders and D'Argo sleeps with his face tucked into her neck. The sense of dislocation is nearly overwhelming, but when she lays down on the bed, her husband rucked up to her back, child curled in her arms, she still senses the motion of flight and the pattern of stars, can close her eyes in the dark.
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Date: 2006-04-25 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-25 11:42 pm (UTC)And your drabble is last because while I have the words for the conversation, I'm not sure whether I want In Media Res or explanation.
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Date: 2006-04-26 12:48 am (UTC)::sniffle:: This is the *best* thing about my whole day. ♥
The sense of dislocation is nearly overwhelming, but when she lays down on the bed, her husband rucked up to her back, child curled in her arms, she still senses the motion of flight and the pattern of stars, can close her eyes in the dark.
That's just lovely, and having experienced something similar aboard a triple-masted schooner at night under the stars and moonlight, it is my favorite line. *hugsyoulots* Thank you so much!
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Date: 2006-04-26 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 05:37 am (UTC)Thank you for these!