Shakespeare Drabbles, cont.
Feb. 26th, 2007 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowContinued from here.
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raithen gave: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
West Wing
Season 8? (Whichever was the final season)
He finds, some time around the sixth month of his banishment (because that's what he thinks of it as. It adds a touch of whimsy to the otherwise grim reality), that what he misses isn't the politics but the people.
It's a tough realization for a bitter old political wonk, but he trades in politics for poultry and learns a new skill. Toby always thought he was too old, too cranky, too deeply, deeply himself to learn new things, but it's not the first surprise he's had at being a product of the Bartlett administration, and disgrace or not, he suspects it won't be the last.
Eventually, he even stops picking up the phone every time there's a press conference, ready to tell anyone on the other end what they're doing wrong. It isn't that he stopped caring, he just… stopped.
Andy says he's almost a pleasure now, but she says it with that tone in her voice that means it's true, but maybe not as welcome as she would have thought. The twins on the other hand seem to genuinely like him, and he takes them to a Yankees game and they don't even squirm, just eat hot dogs until they're ready to puke and fall asleep in the taxi, smeared with cotton candy and popcorn bits. He looks at them, tucked up into him on either side like bookends and wonders when he fell in love with them, when they replaced politics and policy and that place where he used to feel at home.
It's a worthy trade off and one he would never have expected. And this Toby, this man, can even say it out loud.
When he sees the President on television, he looks tired. More than anything, more than policy advice or speech writing or any of those things that Bartlett has well in hand without any input from Toby, what he'd like to offer the man is just a chair in his kitchen, and the twins with hands sticky from batter, or t-ball, or plant dirt. He'd like to offer the president a glass of wine, and some peace and quiet. And somewhere in there an apology. Not for what he did, or for doing it, but for harms rendered and trust broken, and families that fall apart when no one tends to them.
***
rubberneck,
"Of all things living a man's the worst. I'll see thee hanged on Sunday, first."
Firefly
Pre-series
When he brings her on full time, announcing to the crew that this smiley slip of a girl is going to be the ship's mechanic, Mal doesn't expect protest so much as surprise.
Instead he gets grunts and long quizzical looks and a shrug from his second who trusts his judgment when it comes to keeping Serenity herself safe, even if she thinks he's mad to love his girl so.
"This is Kaylee," he says, one hand gentle on her shoulder, a warning and commendation both and then he leaves her to fend for herself.
The first time Jayne propositions her, Mal wonders if he's gonna have to kill him. It's likely not personal, Jayne'll proposition most anything with two legs and no perceptible bulge between them, but still. Mal feels a might … protective of the girl. Possibly it's some of his love for his ship spilling over, but it could be Kaylee's genuine sweetness and the way she stays up night's talking to the engine, crooning and caring like she can hear the same steady pulses that Mal does.
Still, Jayne's cheap muscle. Not trustworthy, but steady as long as his grasp exceeds his reach, food on the table and cash for ammo and the threat of a good clot to the side of the head by a woman with a gun and Jayne mostly does what they ask.
He asks Zoe her opinion, and he sees her struggling not to laugh when she advises asking the girl first is she's harmed, offended.
When he goes to Kaylee, she just giggles. "Cap'n, when you met me I was rucked up against our girl gettin' …"
He interrupts her and blushes like a virgin and says, "Yeah, yeah, okay."
She gets even smilier and pats his arm with strong, greasy hands. "Ahhh, that's so sweet. Jayne didn't mean no harm, and he took no for an answer mostly because he's a might too interested in his guns. I told him I'd help him with the spring lock on the big one though."
Mal looks at her, all innocence and colonist sweet – the kind of girl you find in cornfields, on terraformed worlds with dirt under her nails and babies in her belly, and the smell of bread warm on her skin. And here she is in the engine room of a smuggling ship saying nice things about Mal's pet killer who just offered to fuck her in a highly indecent way, offering to fix his guns and meaning no pun or ill-intention by it.
"Kaylee," he says, because now's the time to be clear. "You know we're… criminals." They call themselves a lot of things – smugglers, space pirates, rebels, but the Alliance only calls them criminals and if they get arrested they aren't going to call her anything different.
She shrugs again, looks anxiously at the loopy rhythmic turn of the engine. "Cap'n, my pa's a dirt farmer, scrabbles every day of his life to take care of all of us. Smuggling ain't so bad. You're not hurtin' anyone, and there's a lot less dirt here than at home. Crime's sort of… subjective, ain't it?"
He feels like she's both holding him accountable and letting him off easy, and he just pats her shoulder again.
"Well," he says, "Just so's you know."
***
simplystars gave
The course of true love never did run smooth.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1 Scene 1
Slings and Arrows
Season 3.
"Sometimes I think the whole world's falling in love."
It sounds more like a line reading than a statement of truth. Ellen flops down on the couch in suitably dramatic fashion and gives him a speculative look. Geoffrey feels like he's somehow missed his cue. That's the kind of statement that generally proceeds woes about the lack of love. But they, he and Ellen, they are supposed to be part of the few, the happy few. Or if she's right, the many.
"Do I want to know?" he asks, fairly certain that he doesn't really want either details or subtext but considering how badly Lear is going, maybe he'd be better off with details. A distraction if you will. No one falls in love in Lear, not with anything worth having at least.
Ellen shakes her head, which means subtext and Geoffrey feels the pounding in his temples.
"It's just… the junior company," she says, and now she's wistful and it's still acting but like all acting there's truth behind her words. "All full of hormones and lust. And glitter." She sighs again, "This year's apprentices seem to come with an awful lot of glitter."
He remembers her as an apprentice, remembers that she had her own indelible sheen – bright teeth and bright eyes and that rich voice in such a tiny body. He remembers the way that the stage makeup behind her ear would taste – cold cream and pancake flat and how the scent of her hair would make him dazed and dizzy. He feels sort of nostalgic and warm for the junior company. He feels awfully glad that they're not really his problem. The one's he deals with show up on time and leave when everyone is done and he just thinks of them as their characters and doesn't care who they fuck.
It's a good rule of thumb, because in the theater you're either fucking or being fucked by everyone. That sounds bad in his head, and he turns the verb to making love but still thinks fucking is more appropriate.
Ellen looks at him now with her real person eyes, the ones that say I love you but I'm still a little thrown and very clearly doesn't ask if he's talking to imaginary people or just to himself. Sometimes he wonders which bothers her more. At least talking to Oliver makes him certifiably crazy. Talking to himself just makes him sad, and sort of separate.
" She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them," he says softly, and Ellen sighs, puts her head on his shoulder.
"Aren't you too old to end an argument with Shakespeare?" she says. "And that one ends badly."
"I didn't know we were arguing," he says, and she sighs again, back to the play. "No," she says, as she puts her hand on his knee, gentle and platonic. "You never do."
***
kernezelda gave me:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
Rome
Season 2.
(Kerne, that's just mean. So you know.)
Gaul is … galling, to say the least. Cold, damp, smelly and savage. Antony feels right at home, or at least he would if it weren't so hard to get whores out to the Hinterlands. And since he became consul, he's had to be far more cautious about who he buggers. Bloody politics, it's cold, clawing arm reaches even into his sex life, wrapping around his cock and giving it a mocking tug.
At night, he dreams alternately of Caesar and Atia, sometimes even the two of them together which is somehow less perverse than the two of them were apart, separate yet scheming. He never wanted to fuck Caesar, but he did yearn for him – for the guidance and intelligence and sheer audacity that the man brought to the table. Antony has always had a soft spot for the audacious which is why he kept his heart, his head, his hands, and his prick firmly lodged within the bosom of the Julii.
That doesn't mean he won't strike down that little piss-ant upstart if it becomes possible though. Antony can ignore the recent defeat – luck, surprise, youth – Octavian's forces had all of that on their side, but Antony knows his men. Knows they are brutish and powerful, had been complacent and easily fooled, but that next time, they'll go straight for the blood.
He wonders, at times, throughout that winter - as his beard grows full and his wrists ache from mastering his own sex - what the senate is doing to itself. What they can possibly be thinking in the face of Octavian's brutally delicate demand for Consulship. He likes to speculate on Cicero's sickly smile of compliance as he finishes, hands stick from his sex, a wicked smile on his face. The old bastard will be eating his words, and someday, Antony will make that threat literal. And the boy has surprised him. He hasn't been truly surprised since Caesar's death, and there's a tiny voice that says he never wants to be surprised like that again. A larger, booming voice that sounds far more like his old friend than is quite comforting tells him not to count on such things for the gods have wicked, capricious senses of humor. After all, they've turned a mulish boy into a tangible threat.
If he had to, Antony would admit to a certain… admiration for the sheer bloody balls on the boy. A squirming, silent spoiled sheep turned into a boy king and not for the first time, Antony reminds himself that while Octavian is a Caesar more by decree and desire than be right, he is without a doubt a Julii.
He should not be underestimated. But then again, Antony thinks, fingers against his rough beard, eyes on maps and mind on rutting, on beer and bread and murder and meat, neither should he.
raithen gave: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." West Wing
Season 8? (Whichever was the final season)
He finds, some time around the sixth month of his banishment (because that's what he thinks of it as. It adds a touch of whimsy to the otherwise grim reality), that what he misses isn't the politics but the people.
It's a tough realization for a bitter old political wonk, but he trades in politics for poultry and learns a new skill. Toby always thought he was too old, too cranky, too deeply, deeply himself to learn new things, but it's not the first surprise he's had at being a product of the Bartlett administration, and disgrace or not, he suspects it won't be the last.
Eventually, he even stops picking up the phone every time there's a press conference, ready to tell anyone on the other end what they're doing wrong. It isn't that he stopped caring, he just… stopped.
Andy says he's almost a pleasure now, but she says it with that tone in her voice that means it's true, but maybe not as welcome as she would have thought. The twins on the other hand seem to genuinely like him, and he takes them to a Yankees game and they don't even squirm, just eat hot dogs until they're ready to puke and fall asleep in the taxi, smeared with cotton candy and popcorn bits. He looks at them, tucked up into him on either side like bookends and wonders when he fell in love with them, when they replaced politics and policy and that place where he used to feel at home.
It's a worthy trade off and one he would never have expected. And this Toby, this man, can even say it out loud.
When he sees the President on television, he looks tired. More than anything, more than policy advice or speech writing or any of those things that Bartlett has well in hand without any input from Toby, what he'd like to offer the man is just a chair in his kitchen, and the twins with hands sticky from batter, or t-ball, or plant dirt. He'd like to offer the president a glass of wine, and some peace and quiet. And somewhere in there an apology. Not for what he did, or for doing it, but for harms rendered and trust broken, and families that fall apart when no one tends to them.
***
rubberneck, "Of all things living a man's the worst. I'll see thee hanged on Sunday, first."
Firefly
Pre-series
When he brings her on full time, announcing to the crew that this smiley slip of a girl is going to be the ship's mechanic, Mal doesn't expect protest so much as surprise.
Instead he gets grunts and long quizzical looks and a shrug from his second who trusts his judgment when it comes to keeping Serenity herself safe, even if she thinks he's mad to love his girl so.
"This is Kaylee," he says, one hand gentle on her shoulder, a warning and commendation both and then he leaves her to fend for herself.
The first time Jayne propositions her, Mal wonders if he's gonna have to kill him. It's likely not personal, Jayne'll proposition most anything with two legs and no perceptible bulge between them, but still. Mal feels a might … protective of the girl. Possibly it's some of his love for his ship spilling over, but it could be Kaylee's genuine sweetness and the way she stays up night's talking to the engine, crooning and caring like she can hear the same steady pulses that Mal does.
Still, Jayne's cheap muscle. Not trustworthy, but steady as long as his grasp exceeds his reach, food on the table and cash for ammo and the threat of a good clot to the side of the head by a woman with a gun and Jayne mostly does what they ask.
He asks Zoe her opinion, and he sees her struggling not to laugh when she advises asking the girl first is she's harmed, offended.
When he goes to Kaylee, she just giggles. "Cap'n, when you met me I was rucked up against our girl gettin' …"
He interrupts her and blushes like a virgin and says, "Yeah, yeah, okay."
She gets even smilier and pats his arm with strong, greasy hands. "Ahhh, that's so sweet. Jayne didn't mean no harm, and he took no for an answer mostly because he's a might too interested in his guns. I told him I'd help him with the spring lock on the big one though."
Mal looks at her, all innocence and colonist sweet – the kind of girl you find in cornfields, on terraformed worlds with dirt under her nails and babies in her belly, and the smell of bread warm on her skin. And here she is in the engine room of a smuggling ship saying nice things about Mal's pet killer who just offered to fuck her in a highly indecent way, offering to fix his guns and meaning no pun or ill-intention by it.
"Kaylee," he says, because now's the time to be clear. "You know we're… criminals." They call themselves a lot of things – smugglers, space pirates, rebels, but the Alliance only calls them criminals and if they get arrested they aren't going to call her anything different.
She shrugs again, looks anxiously at the loopy rhythmic turn of the engine. "Cap'n, my pa's a dirt farmer, scrabbles every day of his life to take care of all of us. Smuggling ain't so bad. You're not hurtin' anyone, and there's a lot less dirt here than at home. Crime's sort of… subjective, ain't it?"
He feels like she's both holding him accountable and letting him off easy, and he just pats her shoulder again.
"Well," he says, "Just so's you know."
***
simplystars gave The course of true love never did run smooth.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1 Scene 1
Slings and Arrows
Season 3.
"Sometimes I think the whole world's falling in love."
It sounds more like a line reading than a statement of truth. Ellen flops down on the couch in suitably dramatic fashion and gives him a speculative look. Geoffrey feels like he's somehow missed his cue. That's the kind of statement that generally proceeds woes about the lack of love. But they, he and Ellen, they are supposed to be part of the few, the happy few. Or if she's right, the many.
"Do I want to know?" he asks, fairly certain that he doesn't really want either details or subtext but considering how badly Lear is going, maybe he'd be better off with details. A distraction if you will. No one falls in love in Lear, not with anything worth having at least.
Ellen shakes her head, which means subtext and Geoffrey feels the pounding in his temples.
"It's just… the junior company," she says, and now she's wistful and it's still acting but like all acting there's truth behind her words. "All full of hormones and lust. And glitter." She sighs again, "This year's apprentices seem to come with an awful lot of glitter."
He remembers her as an apprentice, remembers that she had her own indelible sheen – bright teeth and bright eyes and that rich voice in such a tiny body. He remembers the way that the stage makeup behind her ear would taste – cold cream and pancake flat and how the scent of her hair would make him dazed and dizzy. He feels sort of nostalgic and warm for the junior company. He feels awfully glad that they're not really his problem. The one's he deals with show up on time and leave when everyone is done and he just thinks of them as their characters and doesn't care who they fuck.
It's a good rule of thumb, because in the theater you're either fucking or being fucked by everyone. That sounds bad in his head, and he turns the verb to making love but still thinks fucking is more appropriate.
Ellen looks at him now with her real person eyes, the ones that say I love you but I'm still a little thrown and very clearly doesn't ask if he's talking to imaginary people or just to himself. Sometimes he wonders which bothers her more. At least talking to Oliver makes him certifiably crazy. Talking to himself just makes him sad, and sort of separate.
" She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them," he says softly, and Ellen sighs, puts her head on his shoulder.
"Aren't you too old to end an argument with Shakespeare?" she says. "And that one ends badly."
"I didn't know we were arguing," he says, and she sighs again, back to the play. "No," she says, as she puts her hand on his knee, gentle and platonic. "You never do."
***
kernezelda gave me: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
Rome
Season 2.
(Kerne, that's just mean. So you know.)
Gaul is … galling, to say the least. Cold, damp, smelly and savage. Antony feels right at home, or at least he would if it weren't so hard to get whores out to the Hinterlands. And since he became consul, he's had to be far more cautious about who he buggers. Bloody politics, it's cold, clawing arm reaches even into his sex life, wrapping around his cock and giving it a mocking tug.
At night, he dreams alternately of Caesar and Atia, sometimes even the two of them together which is somehow less perverse than the two of them were apart, separate yet scheming. He never wanted to fuck Caesar, but he did yearn for him – for the guidance and intelligence and sheer audacity that the man brought to the table. Antony has always had a soft spot for the audacious which is why he kept his heart, his head, his hands, and his prick firmly lodged within the bosom of the Julii.
That doesn't mean he won't strike down that little piss-ant upstart if it becomes possible though. Antony can ignore the recent defeat – luck, surprise, youth – Octavian's forces had all of that on their side, but Antony knows his men. Knows they are brutish and powerful, had been complacent and easily fooled, but that next time, they'll go straight for the blood.
He wonders, at times, throughout that winter - as his beard grows full and his wrists ache from mastering his own sex - what the senate is doing to itself. What they can possibly be thinking in the face of Octavian's brutally delicate demand for Consulship. He likes to speculate on Cicero's sickly smile of compliance as he finishes, hands stick from his sex, a wicked smile on his face. The old bastard will be eating his words, and someday, Antony will make that threat literal. And the boy has surprised him. He hasn't been truly surprised since Caesar's death, and there's a tiny voice that says he never wants to be surprised like that again. A larger, booming voice that sounds far more like his old friend than is quite comforting tells him not to count on such things for the gods have wicked, capricious senses of humor. After all, they've turned a mulish boy into a tangible threat.
If he had to, Antony would admit to a certain… admiration for the sheer bloody balls on the boy. A squirming, silent spoiled sheep turned into a boy king and not for the first time, Antony reminds himself that while Octavian is a Caesar more by decree and desire than be right, he is without a doubt a Julii.
He should not be underestimated. But then again, Antony thinks, fingers against his rough beard, eyes on maps and mind on rutting, on beer and bread and murder and meat, neither should he.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 03:39 am (UTC)Can't read S&A yet.
Mmmmm, Antony and Octavian. I like both characters very much. I love the way you describe how Antony's intertwined with the Julii.
He wonders, at times, throughout that winter - as his beard grows full and his wrists ache from mastering his own sex -
I very much like this line, which is striking in its glimpse of masculine strength and peculiarly beautiful to me.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 09:22 am (UTC)I loooooove Mark Antony. I should in no way have used this quote and written Antony, but somethings are simply too hard wired. And mmmm, Antony in Gaul with the beard and the wicked, wicked grin.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 01:12 pm (UTC)Antony isn't my favorite character, but he's oh so cool and fun to watch.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 05:46 am (UTC)::wanders off whistling casually, before Thea can hit me::
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 07:57 am (UTC)::laughs evilly::
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 04:37 am (UTC)itup... :Dno subject
Date: 2007-02-28 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 07:18 am (UTC)This is Kaylee in a nutshell. She's no child, or if she is, she's the kind that has this really ancient person inside, you know, the kind who's learned how to laugh at Mal. :)
Ellen looks at him now with her real person eyes,
Ooh, excellent moment that captures that... change, like acting is sort of like lycanthropy or something.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 09:09 am (UTC)And thank you. I don't always.... like Ellen. But I find her very real (particularly in Season 3, particularly as she navigates between what is real and what is acted).
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Date: 2007-02-27 07:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 09:07 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-02-27 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-27 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-28 09:55 pm (UTC)