ice_whisper

Broken Beauty

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:46:26 GMT

Title: Broken Beauty
Pairing: Chuck/Nate with mentions of Chuck/Blair and past Nate/Blair
Word Count: 2,010
Rating: NC-17
Status: Complete
Note: Takes place after Bart's death. Somewhere in between Blair waking up to Chuck's note and Chuck leaving for Thailand.
Summary: This wasn't like the other times. This time, Chuck isn't Chuck and it's scaring Nate.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Nate Archibald was going to hell.

He knew that fact as he knocked on the door of Chuck’s suite for the fourth time and got no response. He let himself in, using the key he’d never had to use before, and stopped in the doorway.

The suite was trashed. A table was overturned and a lamp lay broken on the floor by the bar. There were four lines of coke prepared on the coffee table with a rolled up hundred sitting just to the side of the drugs. Bottles of every kind of alcohol were littering the floor, some empty, some with enough left that it leaked out and soaked the carpet.

But it wasn’t the mess in front of him that scared him, it was the broken image of his best friend as he tossed clothes into a suitcase. Chuck was too pale, eyes too blood shot, his frame was growing way too thin.

For a second, Nate’s mind flashed back to when Blair’s bulimia was at its worst. Chuck was slowly beginning to look like that, but Nate knew it wasn’t from an eating disorder. It was from too much alcohol in his system and too little food. He doubted Chuck had really kept anything down since the accident.

“Blair has been freaking out looking for you.”

Chuck didn’t even turn around, just tossed his scarf into his suitcase. He stared at it a minute, then took it back out and dropped it to the floor, discarding it, almost like he was discarding himself. “I’ve been right here.”

But he hadn’t been, not really, not since his dad died. This wasn’t the Chuck Bass they’d all known since kindergarten. Their Chuck was an asshole, a self-serving asshole that would help you out when he felt like it. This Chuck was...he was a shell, still sarcastic and biting, but the undertone was all wrong. There was something in his tone that shook Nate to the core, something that made him feel like if Chuck was left alone, he might do something stupid.

His chest pressed against Chuck’s back—and he could feel every vertebra piercing into his sternum—and his arms wrapped around his waist. He tried to ignore the hip bones that poked his arms more than they used to. He could smell the alcohol on Chuck, not only on his breath, but seeping out of his pores. He needed to shower. He needed to sober up.

Chuck didn’t fight the embrace like Nate thought he would. All the fight in him was gone. He followed Nate’s lead as his friend led him towards the bathroom and into the shower.

Nate stripped off his own clothes as he got in, supporting Chuck’s slightly shorter body against his own. He shivered as he turned the water on cold, dousing both himself and Chuck under the stream. His teeth gnawed at his bottom lip the whole time as he soaped Chuck down, trying to push back the worry when Chuck didn’t even react to the temperature. He’d gotten nothing more than a hitch in breathing when the water first hit, but after that, nothing. It was like he was numb.

He finished off the shower fairly quickly, getting them both out and dried before he led Chuck over to the bed. He laid Chuck down under the covers, still naked and hair still damp as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Chuck just lay there against the pillows, eyes half closed as he stared at nothing in particular.

“My dad’s dead,” Chuck whispered as Nate stood up, “Dad’s dead. Mom’s dead.” He didn’t say anymore after that, but Nate saw the tears that tried to gather in Chuck’s eyes. They never fell, just got pushed back like always.

It didn’t matter. Nate’s eyes were tearing up for them both. Chuck never talked about his mom, never more than his annual shot in her memory on Mother’s Day.

He ran his hands through Chuck’s freshly washed hair in comfort and Chuck grabbed his hand as he pulled back. Shaking fingers held his wrist in a death grip and Chuck looked up at him, begging, pleading. He didn’t need to speak the words. Nate knew what he wanted.

He dropped his towel to the floor before he slid under the covers, chilly skin meeting only slightly warmer skin. He kissed Chuck, hand secure on the back of his neck as his tongue searched Chuck’s mouth. That same hint of scotch was always there, just underneath the mint of the toothpaste and Nate kissed him harder.

Nate knew how Chuck wanted it, hard and fast like they always did. Another fuck just like they’d been doing since they were fifteen. It was what Chuck wanted right now, Nate inside him, thrusting deep.

That wasn’t what he was getting.

His lips attached themselves to the skin under Chuck’s left ear, kissing and nipping down his neck and to his collar bone. He stayed there for a minute, letting himself find those little spots on Chuck. They’d never done it slow before, always too scared that if they took their time it would mean admitting something they didn’t want to. They’d always had to be so careful, rush even when they were in the privacy of 1812 because anyone could come by. They fucked and he slept on the couch.

But right now, Nate just didn’t care. He knew he should, he’d heard Blair when she called to say Chuck was missing, crying about how she’d told Chuck she loved him and how he hadn’t said it back. His ex-girlfriend loved his best friend and here he was, kissing and touching Chuck’s body in ways that he didn’t want to think about Blair doing. He should have called Blair the second he found Chuck, should have been the good guy and let Blair take care of him like she wanted to, but he didn’t. Right here, right now, he wanted Chuck to himself. He wanted to take care of Chuck on his own.

“What’re you doin’?” Chuck asked, confused as Nate kept kissing and caressing him. This wasn’t right, this wasn’t what he wanted.

“Sh,” Nate said, kissing Chuck again to quiet him. He knew this wasn’t what Chuck wanted, but he also knew this was what Chuck needed, even if he didn’t know that.

So he kept going, kissing and touching Chuck as he heard the confused noises turn into long moans and felt Chuck go into full hardness. He pressed a kiss to the tip, licking at the pre-come as he reached for the lube.

Chuck’s body shuddered as he inserted his first finger and jolted when he added a second. He stretched Chuck slowly in a way that he never had before and let those moans soak into him, turning him on even more. Chuck was below him, making noises that he didn’t know Chuck could make as he inserted a third and final finger.

“Please,” Chuck breathed, finally seeming to have accepted this wasn’t the sex he’d asked for, but accepting it anyway. He reached for a condom, ripping the package open. His hands were shaking too much to put it on Nate.

Nate kissed him, taking the condom and putting it on himself. He shook his head at Chuck as the shorter man moved to go onto his hands and knees like usual. No. This time he wanted to see his face. He put his hand on Chuck’s hip, lowering it back onto the mattress as he instead lifted Chuck’s legs over his shoulders.

He put two fingers back in Chuck, experimenting with the angle as he kissed Chuck again, this time bending him almost in half. Chuck moaned loudly and Nate smiled into the kiss, removing his fingers so he could reach for the lube once more.

Then he was pushing in, watching as Chuck’s back arched up off the bed and his eyes rolled back, then fluttered shut as his breathing stopped.

He looked beautiful.

Nate kissed him again, couldn’t stop himself. Chuck just needed to be kissed right then. It would be wrong not to, not when he looked like that. You kiss perfection.

Chuck moaned his name into his mouth, hands reaching behind Nate’s back and trying to push him into moving. The second Nate’s hips moved, Chuck was clawing into Nate’s back like he never had before, never could. They couldn’t risk Blair ever seeing the marks. Chuck had always had to clutch the blankets, but now he clawed at Nate’s skin with helpless abandon.

This was them, Nate and Chuck, coming together as the blankets draped around them, shutting them out from the harsh reality that lay outside.

Chuck bucked against him as Nate hit his prostate, nails definitely drawing blood as he angled himself to hit it with each thrust.

“Nathaniel!”

It was his full name that always got to him, listening to Chuck call him that, taking the effort to form each syllable even during sex.

One of his hands went to Chuck’s leaking cock, jerking it in rhythm with his thrusts. Chuck didn’t last long after that and neither did he. It was Chuck’s face as he came that sent him over the edge. It wasn’t something pornographic.

It was the tears, the tears that finally came when he did, bursting forth with no chance for Chuck to stop them. Nate kissed him once before he filled the condom, holding Chuck as they both rode their highs.

Beautiful, even as he cried.

Nate knew he cared for his best friend more than he probably should and that it probably made him more than a little gay, but none of that mattered. He was Nathaniel Archibald and the man below him was Chuck Bass. They just were.

He pulled out of Chuck with a reluctant kiss and disposed of the used condom. He didn’t get up for a towel to clean them off. They could shower later. Right now it was time to comfort Chuck. The dam had broken and Nate had been ready for that.

Chuck was shaking like a leaf as Nate pulled him up against his chest, shoulders heaving as he cried into Nate’s neck. They didn’t speak, just laid there as Chuck finally cried not only for his father, but for the death of both his parents. He cried himself into an exhausted sleep, maybe one of the first sleeps since the accident that hadn’t involved drugs or alcohol. Nate dozed beside him, eyes closed as his hand rubbed Chuck’s back until he finally dropped off into slumber.

Chuck was gone when he woke up.

The space beside Nate was cold and the bags from before were gone. There wasn’t a note or a text telling him where he was going or when he’d be back, but Nate hadn’t really expected one. He’d hoped Chuck wouldn’t run away, but at the same time knew it was what Chuck did.

Nate dressed with slumped shoulders as his eyes kept drifting back to the empty bed and his mind kept flashing back to Chuck’s face only hours before.

He was halfway to the door when he stopped and turned back, going straight for the scarf Chuck had discarded when he first got there. He lifted it to his face, feeling a bit silly as he inhaled Chuck’s scent.

Nate Archibald was in love with his best friend. God, he knew it.

Nate Archibald was in love with Chuck Bass, but Chuck Bass was in love with Blair Waldorf.

He took the scarf with him when he left, folded into his jacket pocket as he looked at his phone and saw a new text from Blair.

Anything?
-B

Nate bit his lip, fingers hovering over the keyboard before he finally typed a response.

He’s gone.
-N

He pressed Send as he exited the building and cast one last look at the hotel.

Chuck was gone, left without a goodbye.

It hurt more than Nate wanted it to.

The End

Understanding

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:28:18 GMT

Title: Understanding
Pairing: Chuck/Dan with mentions of past Chuck/Blair
Word Count: 870
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: My first fic for the fandom. I've only just gotten into the show within the last week (mid-way through season two), but I couldn't resist.
Summary: Chuck Bass is like a puzzle. Dan is figuring him out one piece at a time.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Five years together and Dan’s still learning. Chuck’s been a mystery since the beginning, despite the act he puts on, but as time goes on, he’s figuring out the little things that make Chuck Bass who he is.

He knows that when Chuck gets that distant, sad look in his eyes, it’s going to be a bad day. All this time later, that look still sends him back to the night they sat in the jail cell. It hurts him to see Chuck look like that, so sad, so lost. Those days come without warning, but when they do, Dan just makes sure Chuck knows he isn’t alone, whether it be by a touch or by fucking him so slowly that Chuck’s unconscious by the end, thrown into a mindless oblivion where his mind can recover enough to make that look go away.

He knows that Chuck still cries for his father every year on the anniversary of the accident. Chuck tries to hide it, acts out in a vain hope that he can make Dan stop caring for those twenty-four hours. He always fails, because Dan isn’t going anywhere and he’d hoped that Chuck would have realized that by now. There isn’t much Dan can do on those days other than keep an eye on him while at the same time trying to let Chuck have his space to mourn. He doesn’t know why, but every year when Chuck goes up to the roof to stare out at the city, Dan feels absolutely terrified.

He knows that Chuck buys Lily a gift for Mother’s Day every year. He never gives it to her, never even says the words, but Dan’s seen the credit card receipts and the carefully packaged gifts that get hidden in the back of the closet. Chuck’s never called Lily anything other than her name, but everyone knows. Dan thinks it may be in a quiet loyalty to his birth mother that he doesn’t say it, unwilling to give the name to anyone but the woman he never got to know. It never stops Dan from delivering the gift the second Chuck’s back is turned. Lily knows who it’s from and Chuck knows what he does, but they never address it.

He knows that Chuck drinks a little heavier on the anniversary of the day he and Blair finally fell apart. Dan’s never jealous. He knows there’s still a part of Chuck that loves the brunette, but he also knows that Chuck loves him more, even if he doesn’t say it. He understands that it’s hard for Chuck. She had been the first one that he’d actually fallen for, actually found a meaning with. They didn’t work out, their lives much too different, but it doesn’t discount the fact that they did love each other. They’re still friends and Chuck spends that day with Blair, but Dan’s never worried that he’ll cheat. Blair would never allow it and he trusts them both to never take that step. It’s a silent understanding that they all have, Blair has him for that one day a year, but Chuck always comes home to Dan.

He knows the idea of being with one person for the rest of his life scares Chuck to death. Since childhood, he’d been so used to being abandoned at a moment’s notice. Even growing up with friends, there was still that part of Chuck that was alone, that part that was a scared little kid, desperate for someone to hold onto. Chuck still has a hard time believing that he has that in Dan and he tests him constantly, pushing his buttons to see if Dan will finally walk away like everyone else. Dan never does and he thinks Chuck’s finally beginning to figure it out. They’re still young and maybe he isn’t the person that Chuck will grow old with, but he’ll stand beside Chuck for as long as he’s welcome.

“I’m not going anywhere. You know that, right?”

Dan’s eyes fell away from the screen of his laptop as Chuck shifted in the bed. The other man was still somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness as he lay on Dan’s stomach. It had been one of those days and Dan kissed the messy brown hair once as his right hand traced tiny circles on Chuck’s back. His left was on the keyboard of his laptop, awkwardly typing for a moment before he closed the lid and slid the computer from its place on the mattress beside him and to the floor.

Chuck shifted against him again, this time somewhat awake as he blinked owlishly up at Dan. His brows furrowed as he looked up at him in that same confusion as always, as if asking what Dan was still doing there.

Dan didn’t say anything, just smiled gently as his fingers threaded through Chuck’s hair and he smoothed the crinkles with a kiss. He slid down, this time holding Chuck chest to chest as he murmured softly at the other man to go back to sleep.

“I’m not going anywhere, you know that, right?”

Charlie Trout smiled at his lover, nodding even though he didn’t look all that convinced. “Yeah, I know.”

The End

Connect The Dots

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:20:32 GMT

Title: Connect The Dots
Characters: Alex centric through Meredith's POV. Mentions of Alex/Izzie and teeny bit of George/Alex
Word Count: 714
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Summary: Post 6x05 They found him lying on the bathroom floor.

PLEASE REVIEW!

They find him lying on the bathroom floor.

He’d moved back in when Izzie left, more by her own command than anything else. He’d lived his married life in that trailer with Izzie for however short that marriage was and she knew he couldn’t go back there. She’d told Derek under no uncertain terms that Alex was moving back, at least until he got back on his feet.

“We’re his people.”

Derek had just nodded, knowing how important her people were to her, and she spent another two weeks in her hospital bed, trusting him to keep an eye on Alex.

“Make sure he eats. We had to keep reminding him when she was having treatments. And don’t let him run himself into the ground. He’ll do it without realizing.”

She didn’t see Alex in the hospital to make sure that Derek followed her instructions. Derek never said anything and she trusted him enough to do it.

“The running. He does it every morning-”

“I know, Mer. I have lived with him.”

“Yeah, but when he’s stressed, he pushes himself too hard.”

When she finally came home, she saw that Alex looked thinner and paler, but knew at the same time that Derek couldn’t watch him 24/7. She let it go, taking on the task to take care of him on her own. She had another month before the Chief was even thinking about letting her back. He’d mumbled about how he didn’t want to lose more doctors because they came back too soon and she let him, it was more time to keep an eye on Alex as he walked around like the living dead.

She tried to get him to talk to her, tried to tell him that she got that he was in his dark and twisty place. She’d grown up there…

Though she knew he had, too.

For the longest time, she’d taken a silent pride in the fact that she knew him, got him. She saw the things he tried to hide from everyone else. She knew about the abuse, knew more than Izzie about how bad it really was because she was dark and twisty enough to see the signs of a survivor. She knew he had abandonment issues, left by everyone that said they cared about him. She knew that he’d been in love with one person before Izzie, someone that he’d refused to admit to himself or anyone else, but she saw. She knew about the white, almost invisible, scars that littered his body, some from his father, some not.

So why hadn’t she seen this coming? Had being married taken away the dark and twisty enough that she became this blind?

“Mer, call 911!”

They found him on the bathroom floor, forearms split open and pouring blood all over the tile and into the grout.

She stood there, completely frozen as she tried to remember if she saw the signs, and God damn it, she had, but she hadn’t connected the dots right.

She’d connected the dots into a bottle of tequila.

He’d connected them into the shape of Izzie’s favorite carving knife.

The phone slipped from her hand and to the floor, battery pack snapping out. She didn’t remember making the call, didn’t remember anything past the image in front of her of her husband pressing too white towels to Alex’s arms.

The towels turned red too fast.

She tried not to notice that as Derek cursed and lowered his lips to Alex’s.

Not a kiss.

CPR.

She tore her eyes away from the scene in front of her as tears blurred her vision and there, to the side, was a note. She stepped forward, trying not to vomit as her bare feet landed in the ever-expanding pool of blood.

The corner of the paper was wet with blood as she picked it up, sitting on the side of the tub as she unfolded it.

Right there in front of her was the messy but somewhat elegant scrawl she’d associated with Alex since the first time she met him. It was shaky this time, the ink of his black pen smudged with a few stray tear drops.

They all leave.

She was the only one that knew by ‘they’, he meant George.

The End

Snow

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:49:40 GMT

Title: Snow
Pairing: George/Alex with mentions of Alex/Izzie
Word Count: 1,006
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Summary: Spoilers for S6 - Alex used to hate the snow.

PLEASE REVIEW!

By all rights and purposes, he should hate snow. He grew up in small town Iowa, buried in snow year after year. Freezing weather, shoveling, ice. He should hate it.

But he doesn’t.

He had when he left home, smiled for the first thirty miles as he passed the state line out of Iowa, headed for Seattle. He’d been so happy to be rid of the frozen flakes.

Then…he found himself loving it.

He was muttering to himself as he walked out of the hospital, temper flaring as he watched his steps. Fucking snow. He knew there was black ice lurking beneath the four inch deep snow, just waiting to make him fall on his ass and break his wrist all over again. He almost lost his wrestling scholarship the first time, he wasn’t chancing getting kicked out of the program because he couldn’t operate.

Not when the Chief was already pissed at him.

It hadn’t even been his fucking fault. How was he supposed to know the patient had been self-medicating? He couldn’t watch the asshole every second. It wasn’t his fault the idiot OD’d and as much as the Chief yelled at him about not noticing, he knew it wasn’t his fault.

Patient what’s-his-face was just stupid.

Too in love with his drugs to think about anything else.

Heh. He sounded kind of like his old man, now that Alex thought of it. No wonder he hated the guy.

Alex shook his head, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. Even the gloves were doing nothing against this cold.

“Alex!”

Great. Fucking O’Malley.

“Alex! Hold on a second!”

He really wasn’t in the mood.

“Damn it. Will you wait?!”

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back a step.

Right.

Onto.

Ice.

Alex hit the ground, pulling George with him as his feet flew out from under him. He hit the wet concrete with a grunt, coughing as George landed on his chest and the air rushed from his lungs.

“Shit! Sorry. I-”

“Will you get off of me?” Alex rasped, opening his eyes to glare at George. He paused, what breath he had catching as he realized just how close O’Malley’s face was. He could almost feel the heat of the blush on George’s face, could definitely feel the hot breath warming his frozen nose. His eyes fell on George’s lips, paler than usual from the cold, almost vibrating as the snow seeped into both their clothes.

He tilted his head up and kissed him.

He told himself that O’Malley’s lips just looked like they’d needed warming, but even he knew that was bullshit. He’d wanted to do this for months, spent so much time staring at those eyes, those lips, and that fucking ass.

Alex could feel himself growing hard despite the cold and he could sure as hell feel George doing the same as he kissed back. Fuck. He hadn’t felt this fucking turned on since being in the locker room with Brian junior year.

Shit.

They’d realized ten minutes later, after they’d stopped making out like teenagers and tried to get up, that the fall had broken Alex’s ankle. Funny what cold and another pair of lips could make you forget.

Six months.

They’d gotten six months of hot, sexy, secret sex before George had whispered to him that he wanted to tell the others. He’d frozen, mind running in all different directions and creating a million and one different scenarios.

He couldn’t do it.

He and George were over after that. He couldn’t bring himself to come out and George deserved a guy that could. He kissed George one last time, submitted to him for the first, and told him it was over. He left after that, snuck past Lexie’s door and out of the house, back to Meredith’s.

They pretended everything was fine the next day, like they hadn’t spent the last six months together, like he hadn’t…fuck, he thinks he fell in love with the guy.

Damn it, O’Malley.

He’d started liking the snow because it was where he and George had their first kiss. He felt like a teenage girl for saying it, but it was true. George had made him like the snow.

Now George was dead, body lying six feet under the frozen soil.

Alex clenched his eyes shut, biting his lip as he kneeled. The snow crunched under his knees, soaking through his jeans in seconds, but he didn’t care. He forced his eyes open and stared at the granite stone in front of him. George’s name stared back, white flakes stuck in the indentations. They melted against his fingers as he traced out the ‘G’.

Tears pricked at his eyes and it took him a minute before he finally decided to let them fall. They felt hot against his skin, burning his skin.

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what, he didn’t know. For not coming out? For ending what they had? For getting with Izzie? For getting married? For not breaking down when he died? For looking him in the eye when George gave Izzie away, to him?

Maybe he was apologizing for all of it, for all of his mistakes.

He loved Izzie…but she wasn’t George. He realized that now, way too late, but he realized it.

He’d left George and gone to Izzie, thinking that if he couldn’t have George, he could have his best friend. At the time, he’d deluded himself into thinking that Izzie could take the place George had been taking up in his heart, but she’d never been able to.

He’d married Izzie, but it wasn’t what he wanted, not really. The admission made his left hand feel that much heavier and he could swear that he could feel it sink further into the snow as the wedding band weighed it down.

He’d been in love with George.

George had made him love the snow like he hadn’t since he was six.

But George wasn’t here to enjoy it with him.

The End

Don't Hate Me

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:57:31 GMT

I know a bunch of you are probably waiting on Damaged Souls and some of you are waiting for me to start posting the Secret Life/Firefly crossover, He's Just A Child.

Don't know how long that's gonna take.

I just can't get my muses to write the fics. They're happily coming up with a million and one new fic ideas, but they won't let me finish these two. *glares at muses*

I'll get the fics (more specifically, Damaged Souls) up as soon as I can. These chapters just don't want to write. Be patient with me!!

And on a completely unrelated note, any of you not hating me enough to tell me where I could get my hands on some Brian/Justin (QAF) animated mood themes?

Regrets

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:55:44 GMT

Title: Regrets
Pairing: George/Alex with mentions of Alex/Izzie
Word Count: 574
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Summary: Post S5 - Alex has regrets.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Izzie was alive.

O’Malley was dead.

George was dead.

Alex knew he should have been gluing himself to Izzie’s side. His wife had almost died, hell, she had died. But he couldn’t look at her, each time he did, all he saw was a memory of her best friend.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.”

He pressed himself against the outer wall of the hospital, clothes catching against the weathered concrete as he slid to the ground. Right in this second, he hated himself.

He’d been the one to end whatever it was he and George had. Meredith had asked a question about the time they were spending together and, fuck, he knew it was a joke, but he’d gotten scared. He didn’t have the courage to be out and proud. He could do damn near anything else, but he couldn’t come out of the closet.

Fucking coward.

He hadn’t even offered George an explanation.

“Hey,” George whispered, closing the door of the on-call room behind him and locking it. He lowered himself to his knees beside the bottom bunk, kissing Alex’s clothed shoulder.

Alex kept his back to him, face pressed into the pillow. God, he didn’t want to do this.

A hand on his hip.

“Alex?”

“Get out.”

“W-what?”

“I said, get out.” His eyes clenched shut.

“Alex, I-”

A snort. “What? You love me? Is that what you were going to say? Well, save it. I don’t. How could I love you? Really? It was a fuck, O’Malley, a few mediocre fucks.”

Months worth of sex that had made him feel so…

The door clicked shut and Alex looked over his shoulder. The room was empty. George was gone.

He bit his lip, burying his face back into the pillow. “I’m sorry.”

Now, George was dead.

He couldn’t bring the tears to rise. It was like he’d cried himself dry when Izzie had flat lined. George had deserved better than some guy that couldn’t even cry for him, deserved better than some guy that was so scared to come out that he’d faked his way into a hetero marriage. He loved Izzie, just not in the way…

Not in the way he loved George.

Fuck.

He pressed his forehead to his knees, shoulders shaking in silent sobs as he hid from the rest of the world. He sat there for what felt like hours, turning himself into a quivering mess with barely a look heavenward as the skies opened up and the rain began to fall.

A hand touched his shoulder and he nearly screamed at the shock, springing away from the touch. He saw the hand that had touched him and followed the arm to…

No.

It wasn’t possible.

“Hey,” George said, eyes soft.

George.

“You weren’t down there when everyone figured out…Meredith got it wrong. The guy wasn’t me. I was over at Joe’s.”

Alex raised himself onto his haunches, one hand laying itself on George’s cheek. The skin felt cool from the rain, but he could feel the hot breath brushing against his wrist.

George.

Alive.

He sprang forward, lips catching George’s in a kiss that knocked the air from his lungs. They hit the ground, lips melding together and tongues searching for contact instead of battling for dominance.

He should be with Izzie right now. She was probably wondering where he was.

But George was alive.

He’d take care of the rest later.

The End

Echoing Screams

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:46:14 GMT

Title: Echoing Screams
Characters: Ashley, Ricky
Word Count: 420
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Summary: The screaming hadn’t stopped, only grown louder and more strangled as that pool of blood continued to grow.

PLEASE REVIEW!

For a split second, nothing else existed. Time froze. The sirens stopped, the people shouting orders fell away, and it was just them.

Then it sped back up and she was being torn away from him and surrounded by police and paramedics as their hands searched her body to look for wounds. She didn’t move. Her eyes stayed locked on the growing pool of blood beneath him. It was spreading fast, too fast.

She blinked and she saw it again, the slow motion as she saw the car speeding at her, heart drumming in her chest. She felt the air rush around her as she was pushed out of its path. She heard the scream when she realized that he didn’t have time to save himself.

The screaming hadn’t stopped, only grown louder and more strangled as that pool of blood continued to grow.

“Ma’am,” the cop tried as a paramedic draped a blanket around her shoulders, “Ma’am, are you hurt anywhere?”

Oh, God.

His eyes blinked open for a second, barely open as he tried to figure out where he was, and sobs began to join the still echoing screams as they began to drift closed again. No! Stay awake!

Please…

She wanted to tell the paramedics they were moving too slowly. He needed a hospital now. If they kept at the pace they were going…he wouldn’t make it.

Her phone began to ring and she forced herself to look away from him.

She didn’t want to.

Oh, God. This was all her fault. If she had just looked where she was going…

Her phone rang again and she stared at the broken screen for a moment before she raised it to her ear. Tears ran down her face, making their way into the crevices between the buttons as she pressed the phone too hard against her cheek.

“Ashley?”

She couldn’t muster the words to tell her father she was alright. She couldn’t even stop crying and sat there, eyes watching with blurry vision as the paramedics loaded him onto the stretcher too slowly. Her knees drew up against her chest and she could hear the wet clothes squish together.

She’d worn black today.

No one could see the blood that covered her as she’d held him to her chest, begging him to stay with her.

They couldn’t see the blood, but she could feel it seeping through her clothes and into her skin, marking her down to her very core.

This was all her fault.

Ricky…

The End

Damaged Souls Update

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:55:16 GMT

Not a chapter.

I know. I suck.

I'd written in a comment a few posts back on here that the tentative return date for "Damaged Souls" was September 1...I think you can tell it apparently isn't. I'm sorry!

I suck times two.

Long story short...ish. School is about to start. Life is hectic. One chapter is being held hostage from my beta until I get something from her. Writer's block on the chapter after that which I can't ask my beta for help on.

All that equals out to one very stressed out Crissy.

I know some of you (there are fans still out there, right?) waiting for new chapters, but just wait a while longer! The chapter I'm blocked on is the epilogue and there's only three chapters until the fic is complete. I just want to give you a regular posting schedule. =(

I suck times three?

Tanarian Search

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:15:21 GMT

Okay, so I'd had a ton of tanarian's fics tabbed up on my computer, but lost them when my computer decided to be mean. I'd saved them to my favorites list and just realized that all the entries to tw_flashfic are gone, so now I'm missing a couple. Not sure why it only seems to be on that comm, because the ones on jantolution and torchwoodcoffee work fine.

The ones I'm missing:
- Silver Service
- Winner Take All

If anyone has those saved to their hard drive, I'd love it if you could e-mail them over. I'll provide my e-mail address when the fics have been found.

Thanks in advance!

ETA - Found! And I stupidly didn't realize until this was replied to that I didn't post this on twstoryfinder like I thought I had. *facepalm* Links in comments.

Freedom!

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:00:45 GMT

My summer classes are over! *dance* God only knows what my final grades are, but I'm hoping to get them soon.

Onto the topic of my fics which is probably all you guys really care about...

I'm going to be working on "Damaged Souls" (Torchwood/Buffy The Vampire Slayer crossover for those of you that didn't know) and I'm hoping I can get back to posting soon. I've made you guys wait much too long. Since my flashdrive committed suicide and started this whole drama, my typed out plan for the fic had been to be around 20 to 22 chapters. Since then, though, I've looked over what I can remember from my original plan and realized that I'd added a couple chapters that really had no point to them. Looking at it now, it's more of a better bet to say that there will be either two or three chapters left, leaving the total at 18 or 19, one of the chapters being an epilogue.

I'm also going to be working on a new multi-chapter fic that will be about 6 or 7 chapters total in length. It's a crossover between Secret Life Of The American Teenager and Firefly. Weird combo, I know, but trust me on this. It's called "He's Just A Child" and there's a picture to go with the fic that I'll post when I begin posting the chapters.

And lastly, I have some fics that I wrote (some finished, some not) while sitting in my night class. Those will be posted...eventually. There're are a couple Torchwood (Janto and gen), Grey's Anatomy (George/Alex), Secret Life Of The American Teenager (Ricky/Amy), and one that's Torchwood/Secret Life Of The American Teenager (either gen or having a hint of Ricky/Amy and Janto). There may have been a couple others that I can't remember just yet.

So I'll have a lot of typing to do.

Really...I'm not even sure if anyone even reads this, but I'm posting it anyway. If any of you are readers from "Damaged Souls", I'd love to know that you're still sticking around through my long as hell hiatus.

Hit The Floor

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:40:13 GMT

Title: Hit The Floor
Character: Ricky centric with some Ricky/Amy
Word Count: 901
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Summary: He was a son, a student, a boyfriend, and a father. Somewhere in the mess, Ricky forgot to take care of himself.

Spoilers: Only if you haven't read the sides (available on Fanforum in the SLOTAT Spoiler Thread) that tell the gender of Anne's baby and the baby's name. Otherwise, you're safe.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Time was dragging.

Ricky squinted, blurry eyes trying to locate the seconds hand on the clock. Was it even moving? Too slow. There were still well over two hours left of school.

What was Mr. Martin saying? He couldn’t hear him over the buzzing in his head.

He wanted to go home, wanted to curl up under his comforter and rest, but he couldn’t. He’d already missed too much school, skipping to see John. It didn’t matter that he was sweating or that his stomach felt like it was ready to split open. It didn’t matter that he’d already had to duck into the bathroom twice to throw up a breakfast he didn’t eat. It didn’t matter that he was so tired, he’d thought he saw red floating in the bile.

It would be hours before he could lie down. School, John, work, John again, homework. He wouldn’t be going to bed until two and he’d be up again at six to start it all over again, just as he had for the last year.

He bit back a groan as a shot of pain raced through his stomach. Oh, God, it hurt. His vision blurred, black dots dancing across his vision as the too slow clock seemed to disappear into the wall.

Then the bile was rising in his throat again. He dashed for the door, Mr. Martin’s shouts lost in the buzz. He was pulled to a stop by the middle aged man and he saw lips moving, probably asking him what he thought he was doing, but he couldn’t hear the words.

Oh, God. He couldn’t…

And his stomach revolted.

He doubled over, vomiting over Mr. Martin’s shoes, and then everyone was screaming, and he saw it.

Blood.

He choked on his scream, voice caught as more blood fell from his mouth and to the floor.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

Too much blood.

Oh, God.

He was going to die.

---

The first thing he heard was beeping.

Ricky squinted his eyes open, cringing against the too bright light.

“Oh, thank God,” someone sighed. He knew that voice, but his mind was running too slowly. Who…

Margret.

“Mar…” he croaked, voice rough and throat too dry to finish her name. He closed his eyes as she kissed his forehead, brushing his hair off his sweaty skin.

“Richard Timothy Underwood, you will be the death of me.” She squeezed his hand and he clutched hers as hazy eyes begged a question. “Sh, it’s alright. I’m just paging Eli.”

He didn’t let go, hung on as Eli all but ran in, kept hanging on as they explained what had happened. His hold turned into a death grip as he got lost in the words of hundred-and-five degree fevers, flu, blood loss, too close, and undiagnosed bleeding ulcers. His grip lightened at the words full recovery. Margret was crying by the end, God knows how many times she’d heard it already. She kissed his hand over and over, and only stopped at a tentative knock at the door.

“Do you think you’re up for visitors?” she asked, looking worried and as if she didn’t want to let anyone else near him except herself.

He nodded slowly, taking a sip of the water Eli offered him and closed his eyes, staying silent as Margret kissed his head. Part of him wanted to reach out for her again, didn’t want to lose that security she brought, but he held himself back and let her leave with Eli, leaving room for his visitor to enter. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Amy returned softly as she inched in and sat in the chair beside his bed. “How are you feeling?”

He shifted in the bed, wincing as stitches and IV lines pulled. “Ask me in a couple days.”

She laughed and it cut off into a sob. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “It’s my fault.”

“Amy, it wasn’t-”

“You work so much for me and John. You ran yourself into the ground for us.”

“I’m fine.” He took her hand in his, this time mindful of the IV, and squeezed. “Full recovery. I’ll be home in no time.” He pulled on her hand until she met his gaze. “Just fine.”

“But the ulcer,” she said, “they’re caused by stress, aren’t they?” She shook her head, decisive. “I’ll pick up some more hours at the daycare.”

“Amy-”

“I don’t want you to get sick again,” she whispered. “What if it happens again? What if next time…what if they aren’t fast enough?”

“It won’t.”

“But it could.”

Ricky closed his eyes in a slow blink, knowing he was in a losing battle. When he opened them again, he looked around. “Where’s…”

“They wouldn’t let me bring him in,” Amy said sadly, “Risk of infection and everything. He’s at home with my mom and Robie.”

His brow furrowed. “Then how’d you…”

“I drove.”

He blinked, eyebrows shooting into his hairline. “You hate driving.”

“My boyfriend was rushed to the hospital. Nerves didn’t matter.”

He was speechless for a moment. Amy hated driving, avoided it like the plague, but she drove here for him. Almost five years with Margret and Eli and six months dating Amy and he still wasn’t used to people caring.

Amy smiled at him, eyes glassy as she leaned down and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Thank God you’re okay.”

He could get used to this.

The End

Bend In The Road

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:29:40 GMT

Title: Bend In The Road
Character: Brian with a teeny hint of Brian/Justin
Word Count: 158
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: My first fic of the fandom. =) And the amazing picture that is below the cut that goes with this fic? Made by my lovely Kyra. Love you, hun!!
Summary: Pre-Series: The impossible had happened. Brian Kinney was getting bored.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Sex, drugs, drinking, having a good time; it was all that mattered. Meet a hot guy, screw the hot guy, watch him leave, and know that it hadn’t meant anything. He didn’t care. Why would he? It was all cock and hole, thrust and fuck. Love didn’t matter. Names didn’t matter. He didn’t need love, never had before.

So why was everything getting boring?

He’d smile, bring a guy home or to the back room. He’d pretend he was having fun when the truth was that he really just felt kind of numb. It didn’t feel right; Brian Kinney bored?

But he was.

The thrill of the chase was gone. Guys came and went in both senses of the term and he hardly had to do a thing before they were all over him. It was all too easy.

He needed fun.

He needed thrill.

He needed something new.

Then he saw him under the streetlight.

The End

Friends

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:47:57 GMT

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Not So Happy Update

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:32:46 GMT

So my summer classes started today; Literature: The Novel (online), American Lit 1 (online), and Physical Science 1 (in class). It's past 1 in the morning (so I guess my classes started yesterday) and I'm only just starting to get around to reading today (yesterday's) batch of fic updates on LJ. I haven't even tackled FFN yet.

I hate to say it as much as you guys (especially all of you that are waiting on Damaged Souls), but if my assignments keep going the way they seem to be going, then I'm going to be completely bogged down. I may disappear somewhat, but I'm going to try and not disappear completely. I'll work with what free time I can manage, but it's looking like these next two months are going to be made of suckage.

I'm not abandoning you guys and I'm not abandoning my fics (especially Damaged Souls). Reading and writing these fics keep me sane. I just think I'm going to have to step back a bit.

Don't give up on me!

This is the last time I listen to my sister about school. "Online courses are easier," she says, "especially in summer."

Yeah. Not with the teachers I got.

X.x

I'm Home!

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:36:45 GMT

I'm home!! Dammit. Of course the weather got completely gorgeous on the day we went home, but that's my luck, right?

*sigh*

To Do List:
-Unpack
-Eat
-Go through 7 days of updates (kill me now)

Will Be Back

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:51:43 GMT

Yup, it's June again and like last year, I'm going on my week long vacation with my family. Have my laptop this year, but I don't know if the house we're renting has wifi connection (since reading/writing slash fics in the middle of the living room may not be the best idea), so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get on again before I come home next Saturday.

Promise you guys that while I'm gone, I will work on "Damaged Souls". The muse has been incredibly stubborn when it comes to rewriting Chapter 17 and I'm running into some issues. Don't worry, though. I'm bringing my laptop instead of a book this year, so even if I don't have wifi, when my friend and I retreat from beaches and sunburns to the nice central air of the house, she can read while I write. Don't know how much I'll get done, but it's better than nothing, right?

What I'll also be working on is a new fic. I've decided that to keep a rhythm going, I'll be writing a chapter of "Damaged Souls" followed by a chapter of my new (and still unposted) Firefly/Secret Life Of The American Teenager crossover, "He's Just A Child".

For those of you reading "Damaged Souls", don't worry. Alternating fics will actually keep me writing faster and then I can write a few more chapters before I resume posting so that you have a regular posting schedule.

I think that's all for now.

Talk to you guys in a week!!!

Alphabet Prompts - Master List

Sun, 31 May 2009 06:33:57 GMT

Title: Alphabet Prompts - Master Post
Pairing: *deep breath* George/Alex (Grey's Anatomy), Mark/Derek (Grey's Anatomy), Jack/Ianto (Torchwood), Jack/Owen (Torchwood), Owen/Ianto (Torchwood), Spike/Angel (Angel), Spike/Wesley (Angel), Angel/Wesley (Angel), Gibbs/Tony (NCIS), Tim/Tony (NCIS), Gibbs/Tim (NCIS), Munch/Fin (Law & Order: SVU), Mark/Roger (RENT), Maureen/Joanne (RENT), and some general ones.
Word Count: 4,225
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: To all of you that are on multiple comms that I'm x-posting to, I am so sorry for spamming your flists!!
Summary: The master post. Take a look and see what you can find.

A is for affectionate, RENT, Mark/Roger
They were used to the insults, the slurs that people would send their way when they kissed on a sidewalk or when Roger would slide his hand into his back pocket. They couldn’t say it didn’t bother them sometimes, but they didn’t let it get to them.
Mark was fairly certain that Roger waited for those comments, just so he could kiss him hard, right in front of whoever had opened their mouth.
Back in Scarsdale he would have blushed and whispered something to his partner about keeping the shows of affection for home, but here and now, he didn’t. He wasn’t going to have forever with Roger, he might not even have next year.
He needed to fit in every kiss and caress he could.

B is for blanket, Torchwood, Ianto/Owen
He was bloody well freezing. Himalayas? Saxon couldn’t have sent them somewhere warm?
Shivering, he curled into a ball on his rickety village-provided bed, pulling the blanket closer around him, and groaned when all that did was put his knees into an uncomfortable position below his chin. He stretched out, glaring at his slumbering bunkmate. Stupid teaboy was sleeping like a baby.
He could almost feel the warmth of the light bulb going off above his head. Teaboy had another blanket. Two blankets and two bodies meant more warmth. Completely professional, nothing desirable about it. He was sure the girls were doing it over in their room. He was just cold. It had nothing do to with the street clothes Teaboy had taken to wearing in place of his suits and how his jeans were too damn tight to be comfortable when they were climbing up a mountain. Nope. Not at all.
Resolved, he rose from his bed, clutching his blankets to him and pushed Ianto to the side so he could climb in. He settled against the taller man’s sweater clad chest, already feeling warmer when he felt something poke into his thigh. He frowned, shoving his hand into the other man’s pants pocket, and pulled out...a rock.
A warm rock.
That bloody bastard! He brought the heating stone from the archives!
He scowled, shoving it into his own pocket as he settled back against Ianto’s chest. “Cheater.”

C is for corporate greed, Torchwood, Anyone
Jack was always in a foul mood when he had to go to a UNIT conference and in an even worse one when he came back. Three days of listening to officials he didn’t respect as they picked apart every action and charge to the budget.
Jack never understood why UNIT would never accept the charges for whatever sex toy he stumbled upon.
Ianto never seemed to mind them.
Though he did have a habit of mentioning he’d charged it to the Torchwood account when Ianto was otherwise occupied.
He was sure Ianto wouldn’t mind though, not if those moans meant anything.

D is for diamonds, Law & Order: SVU, Anyone
Fin looked up from his birthday gift, meeting John’s eyes as he pulled the necklace from the box. “John, you realize that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, right?”
John knew he meant it as a joke and scowled half-hearted at his partner. “Just shut up and say ‘thank you’, Fin.”
“Can’t shut up and thank you at the same time,” Fin said with a smirk, fingers playing with the diamond eyes of the onyx dragon pendant.
Cragen had to break up their paper wad fight five minutes later.

E is for enigmatic, Torchwood, Ianto/Owen
Owen didn’t know what Ianto was thinking half the time.
Honestly, sometimes he wasn’t sure if he wanted to.
He was a light sleeper, always had been. He always had to be there at the first ring at of a phone or pager, people to help, lives to save.
But he couldn’t do a God damn thing when quiet whimpers would wake him in the middle of the night.
Ianto didn’t thrash in his nightmares, didn’t shout at figures that were only in his head. He suffered in as much silence as his sleep-fogged mind could accomplish. And really, it scared Owen more than he liked.
He never asked what the nightmares were about and Ianto never offered answers. He’d wake up in the morning, blue eyes darker than they had been the night before and they seemed to keep getting darker as the nights went on. Part of Owen was sure one day they’d wake up and those blue eyes will have turned black.
He let Ianto keep that mystery about him for a while until the darkness of his eyes was finally too much.
He pulled the cleaner dampened cloth from Ianto’s hand as the younger man cleaned the kitchen one morning, dragged him into the living room and pulled him onto the couch. “The dreams. Tell me.”
Ianto talked for hours and Owen listened.
He still had a nightmare that night, but when he woke up, wrapped in Owen’s arms, his eyes didn’t look any darker.

F is for first kiss, Angel, Angel/Wesley
His heart would be pounding if he were alive, would be pounding and hammering, threatening to burst from his ribcage. But it was still, long stalled and doing nothing to portray the panic he was feeling as he pulled Wesley from the water.
“Wesley, come on,” he demanded, hair dripping wet, “You aren’t dying like this. Breathe.”
He didn’t and a second later, Angel’s lips were covering his. Angel tore away a second later, cursing as he realized that though his shoulders would move as if breathing, his lungs had stopped working a long time ago.
He closed his eyes, breathing deep and trying to remember just what it felt like to have air come into his lungs. Wesley wasn’t dying and no one else was here. He had to do this.
He covered Wesley’s lips again, practically shouting in relief when he felt air rush past his teeth and down Wesley’s airway. Pulling back, he applied the compressions before returning to add more air.
And then Wesley was coughing water into his mouth.
Thank God.

G is for gloating, Angel, Angel/Spike
“Don’t forget who beat you getting to that cup,” Spike singsonged as they patrolled the sewers below Los Angeles, “Should just let me lead.”
Angel grit his teeth as Spike went on. His fists clenched and he could swear he heard the wood of the stake groan against the force.
There had only been one vampire that night, most of them realizing the upcoming apocalypse and hightailing it from the city. It was a waste of time to be down here, but it needed to be done.
Angelus was angry inside him, growling at the cocky Childe. One fight, he’d lost one fight for a cup of Mountain Dew.
“Can’t handle being the leader, eh?”
And he snapped, throwing the stake to the side as he spun on Spike, throwing the smaller vampire against the wall of the tunnel and smashing his lips against Spike’s in a bruising kiss. He growled, breaking away from the kiss and shoving his hand into Spike’s pants as he bit into the blonde’s neck.
He’d show Spike who was boss.

H is for holding hands, NCIS, Tony/Tim
He was shaking, shaking and gasping as he lay in the hospital bed, bathed in blue lights. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even see straight. His head was pounding, his nose was running, and God damn it, if he could just get his airway clear, that would be great.
How much longer was he supposed to do this? The virus was dead, died long ago, but he wasn’t getting better. When his vision was clear enough, he could see the silent looks between Brad and Emma. They didn’t think he was going to make it and, to be honest, neither did he.
He almost couldn’t feel the hand suddenly surrounding his, squeezing with a strength he couldn’t even muster anymore. A Probie shaped blob smiled down at him, settling into the ugly, deformed chair beside his bed.
The doctors told him the next morning that he’d slept straight through the night.

I is for inconspicuous, Law & Order: SVU, Munch/Fin
Olivia looked up from her paperwork, lips twitching in a smile as she watched Fin and Munch across the bullpen. It was a slow day, thank God, and they’d really just been spending the day catching up on the mountains of paperwork that always seemed to pile up.
Munch and Fin were standing shoulder to shoulder by the window, staring out at the thunder storm as they spoke about something she couldn’t hear.
“Do they really think we can’t tell?” Elliot asked, pulling her attention away from her coworkers. His question made her smile and she laughed softly. “I thought Fin was supposed to be experienced in undercover.”
“Maybe his skills are only in Narcotics,” she joked.
Eliot snorted back a laugh, covering his chuckle when Munch laid a hand on Fin’s back that was just a bit too far down for friends. “I’m seeing why we never send Munch undercover.”
“You think Cragen knows?”
“Oh, he knows.”
Olivia and Elliot jumped as Cragen appeared behind them, both flushing a bit as they felt like two children caught telling a secret.
Olivia coughed, trying to clear the awkwardness. “Should we tell them we know?”
“Nah,” Cragen replied, “I think they’ve made a game out of it.”
Olivia snorted into her coffee as Elliot groaned, both of their minds going to the same exact place. Cragen groaned a second later as his mind caught up to his words.
They’d been working here entirely too long.

J is for jealousy, Torchwood, Jack/Owen
He slept with Ianto when Jack was gone. Just once, rushed and hard down in the vaults and they didn’t talk about it after it happened.
Jack had figured it out within a week of being back, came up to him, grinning from ear to ear as he leaned into him and quipped, “Making your way around the place, huh? Gwen, Ianto, me by association.”
He probably would have said more, but his mouth was covered a second later. They were alone as he shoved Jack against the autopsy table and his mind was anywhere but the CCTV footage when Jack lifted him up and climbed on top of him.
If he was going to have Jack down on his list of People Screwed, he wasn’t going to have it in some pansy way of ‘by association’.

K is for kinky, Angel, Spike/Wesley
Wesley was fairly certain he hadn’t been like this before he came to the States. He’d never had any desire to even contemplate what it would feel like. But things seemed to have changed.
He gasped, head thrown back as Spike slid sharp teeth down his chest. His back arched and he moaned, loud, when he felt a fang pierce his skin. He shuddered as Spike chuckled low in his throat and licked the tiny spot of blood away.
The teeth were back in a second and he could feel the bumps of Spike’s game face against his skin as fangs sunk into the inside of his thigh.
“Oh, God!”
“No God here,” Spike grunted against his thigh.
Oh, but it was the sweetest hell.

L is for late, Grey's Anatomy, Derek/Mark
“Derek, I’m late.”
“You can’t get pregnant, Mark,” Derek slurred, still half asleep as he watched Mark rush through the room with one squinted eye.
Mark glared at him, pulling his head through his shirt. “Work, Derek. I’m late for work. You know, that big place with patients and smells like antiseptic.”
Derek nodded. “Good.”
“Good?”
“You’d look funny pregnant,” Derek said, sinking into the pillows.
Mark stopped in his mad dash around the room, blinking slowly. “Derek, you realize that you’re late, too?”
Derek was up in a second. “Shit!”

M is for music, NCIS, Tony/Tim
Three hours.
They’d been stuck in this stupid elevator for three hours with that God awful elevator music playing. Really, give them a reason for it.
Gibbs, probably. This hell hadn’t been added until Vance noticed how much Gibbs used the elevator for conferences.
“I’m going to go insane,” Tony groaned, banging his head back against the wall as the song looped for the thirty-eighth time.
“Could be worse,” Tim shrugged, sliding down to sit beside Tony.
“How could it be worse, Probie?” Tony snapped.
“You could be stuck in here with Ziva.”
Tony froze, and then shivered. “She’d kill me.”
Tim laughed, patting Tony’s knee. “They’ll have it fixed soon.”
“And until then?” Tony asked before pausing and smirking, “Actually…scratch that. I have the perfect idea.”
“Wh—oof!”
Well, that works.

N is for neighbors, RENT, Maureen/Joanne
Maureen was a screamer.
She wasn’t like the quiet lovers Joanne had had in the past. She didn’t make quiet moans and whimpers. There weren’t whispered words.
Not with Maureen.
Maureen vocalized her pleasure for all to hear, moans and curses echoing off the walls of their apartment when the performer would wake her up for sex at two in the morning. She didn’t hold back, wasn’t shy about telling Joanne just how good she made her feel.
Their neighbors probably didn’t appreciate it.
Joanne loved them, though, could still hear those echoes bouncing off the ceiling afterward as they drifted back to sleep.

O is for overwhelmed, Tony/Gibbs
Tony was gasping under him, body shuddering under Gibbs’ touch. His eyes clenched closed, hand flailing as it searched for something to hold. It found Gibbs’ and held on tight, squeezing and loosening before squeezing again.
Gibbs kissed his forehead before he lifted off of Tony, keeping hold of the smaller man’s hand as he settled himself in a sitting position beside him. He waited for Tony turn onto his stomach and bury his face in his lap as his fingers threaded through brown hair and he closed his eyes.
He listened as the gasps turned into heart wrenching sobs, listened as the sounds echoed off the walls.
The anniversary of Kate’s death was hard on all of them.

P is for penguins, NCIS, Anyone
Abby and Ziva couldn’t help the snorted giggles as they entered the hall and saw Gibbs, Tony, and McGee in their tuxes. Gibbs had a hand in a pocket, well used to the wear of the outfit from his marriages. Tony didn’t look too phased, probably mentally comparing himself to James Bond and using his Sean Connery voice.
But poor McGee. He looked so uncomfortable, fingers pulling at the bowtie, legs in a constant dance from foot to foot as he fidgeted. Gibbs fixed him with a glare, probably not the first of the night and he froze. The dance began again after Gibbs looked away.
Abby stifled her giggles, gliding up to McGee and pulled him onto the dance floor. At least there the dancing wouldn’t look quite as awkward.
Ziva shook her head, joining Gibbs and Tony as they stood to the side. She caught the tail end of their conversation, something about Tony needing a landlord that would actually fix things, before she reached them. Gibbs nodded at her, eyes catching Ducky across the room before he left.
Tony smiled at her, leaning back against the wall.
She smiled back, eyeing him a little closer.
“Like what you see, Zee-vah?”
“You look like a penguin.”
Tony grinned. “A sexy penguin.”

Q is for quiz, Angel, Spike/Angel
“Pop quiz,” Angel said, rolling on top of Spike and rousing him from his sleep.
“Wh’ th’ fuck?” Spike mumbled, eyes snapping open when he felt Angel’s lips on the skin behind his ear. He groaned as Angel blew softly on the wet skin.
“Pop quiz,” he repeated, “Name That Bone.”
“Thought you were waking me up for sex,” Spike complained, trying to roll onto his side, but unable to push off Angel’s weight.
Angel shook his head, kissing the bone just beside the hollow of Spike’s throat. “Name?”
“Not playing,” Spike murmured, moaning low in his throat when Angel nipped the skin.
“Playing now?”
“Mm, clavicle.”
“Very good.” Angel kissed down Spike’s arm. “Bone?”
“Ulna.”
He kissed down Spike’s chest. “Bone?” he asked, slipping his hand between Spike’s legs.
“Dick,” Spike cursed, thrusting against him.
“Not there yet,” he chuckled, “Bone?”
Spike almost whimpered.

R is for recession, RENT, Anyone
Money was tight, always was with them, but as the prices continued to skyrocket and their supply of money began to dwindle, things got hard. The ATMs Collins had wired were of no use to them anymore now that they’d all been replaced with newer ones. Benny turned off their heat again.
Mark shivered against the cold, watching as Roger curled up on the duck taped couch, looking even thinner than he had yesterday. He looked paler, too.
They needed money. Roger hadn’t been able to book a gig with anyone in over a month. Bars and clubs wanted bands, not a one man show. He hadn’t sold a film since No Day But Today and even that hadn’t sold for much.
He sighed, fingers tightening around the chipped coffee cup as Roger sneezed once and made his decision. He’d go back to Buzzline, beg for his job, grovel if he had to.
They needed the money, even if it meant selling his soul.
Roger needed heat and food if he was going to stay healthy and Mark wasn’t going to let the sleaziness of Buzzline keep him from making sure Roger lived another day.

S is for success, NCIS, Tony/Gibbs
He got Gibbs out safe.
That was all that mattered as he pressed against Gibbs’ bare chest that night. He’d gotten Gibbs out safe and no one had had to die. So he’d had to use a movie to give him the idea of looping the video feed while they got the kids to safety and got to the bad guys.
Gibbs was safe.
He was here and he was in one piece.
Tony closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of wood and coffee as he felt Gibbs’ arm tighten in its grip around his waist. He rested his chin atop Gibbs’ heart, eyes blinking open to meet his lover’s.
Gibbs kissed him, pushing him down as he moved to straddle his waist.
He knew Gibbs wouldn’t lay there singing his praises. He’d done his job and got everyone out alive, he took control as Senior Field Agent when Gibbs let himself become a hostage.
But Gibbs was safe now, he was home and Tony was in his bed, lashes fluttering as lips trailed down his body.
Good day.

T is for talented, Law & Order: SVU, Munch/Fin
It was always amusing for John to watch Fin when he went undercover. This whole other side of Fin would come out, a glint in his eyes that wasn’t normally there. He had fun with it. And he was good.
But even though he’d have his fun being someone else, the end was always the hardest. He was quiet after coming back, always was. He’d barely speak and it was impossible to get him to crack a joke or a smile of any kind.
So they’d just lie in John’s bed—always John’s since it was bigger—while he kept one arm secure around Fin, grounding him until he could ground himself.

U is for us, Grey's Anatomy, George/Alex
“What are we, Alex?”
It was a valid question. They’d been having sex for four months and, sure, having sex didn’t mean everything, especially not at Seattle Grace, it had to mean something that they weren’t screwing then leaving, right? Right? They’d taken each other home, his more than Alex’s so the girls wouldn’t ask questions, and they actually spent the nights together.
He could feel Alex’s fingers tangled in his hair, unmoving now that he’d drifted off to sleep. He didn’t want to wake Alex, but he needed to know.
“Hm?” came Alex’s sleepy reply as he shifted below George.
“What are we?”
“You woke me up to ask me that?” Alex grunted, pulling George in for a kiss when he saw the other man’s blush, “We’re us, George.”
“So there’s an us?” George asked, trying to hide his smile.
“Go to sleep, George.”

V is for Valentine's Day, RENT, Mark/Roger
They weren’t like other couples. They didn’t spend their Valentine’s Day sitting in front of a cozy fire, sharing chocolate covered strawberries.
They had a metal garbage can, burning old scripts that Mark had long since abandoned and they each had their own bowls of Captain Crunch. And though they shared a blanket, it was more for warmth than romance.
Mark rested comfortably against Roger’s chest, his head fallen back against a leather clad shoulder as he felt the thu-thump of Roger’s heart against his back.
They didn’t make promises for next year, because they didn’t know if they’d have it. They’d already lost Angel and Mimi. Life was too unpredictable to make plans for next year, not in a life like theirs.
Roger began to hum what Mark immediately recognized as the tune for “Musetta's Waltz” and he smiled, fingers trailing along his camera.

W is for weathered, NCIS, Gibbs/Tim
He was crying in a stairwell when Gibbs found him, his suit wrinkled and damp from the tears that dripped off his chin. He looked up at Gibbs, wiping his eyes as he tried to erase any evidence of the tears. He could feel his cheeks burning.
Gibbs wouldn’t cry.
Tim scowled at himself, telling himself that he got off easy. He was only being moved to Cyber Crimes. Tony and Ziva were leaving, Gibbs was getting a new team.
Gibbs sat beside him, looking older than Tim had ever seen. His eyes were dull, tired, and he could see wrinkles that he knew hadn’t been there before…before the Director died.
He clenched his eyes shut to fend off the next wave that he knew wanted to come rushing out. His eyes popped open as he felt a hand rest on the back of his neck, giving a soft squeeze. Wide eyes landed on Gibbs, staring at the man who kept his own eyes straight.
“Boss?”
“Never be ashamed of tears, Tim,” Gibbs said. His own voice sounded rough.
He could have sworn he saw Gibbs’ lashes start to glisten.

X is for Xander, Angel, Spike/Angel
There weren’t heart monitors beeping that reassuring beep. In fact, had they been on, they would have been giving that long shriek.
Spike’s heart hadn’t beaten in over a century.
That beeping would have perfected the scene, though, would have perfected image of his Childe, small and frail in the hospital bed while he sat in the chair, clutching a limp hand.
Spike would wake up in his own time, his body needed time to heal from the damage.
Angel closed his eyes against the memories of finding Spike lying unconscious almost in the light of the rising sun. He’d dashed for the smaller vampire that had been missing for over two months, grabbed him and pulled him into the safety of the shadows.
He almost jumped as Spike’s fingers tightened around his.
“Wh’ happen’d?” Spike slurred, eyes barely open a sliver. “How’d y’find me?”
“Xander,” he said, knowing Spike was too far gone to be able to listen to the explanation of how Xander had found him.
Spike made a grunt of acknowledgement, eyes slipping closed again. “One tha’ sees.”
“Sleep, William.”
He kissed Spike’s forehead, listening as the needless breathes evened out.

Y is for yoyo, NCIS, Tony/Anyone
Gibbs didn’t really get why Tony would stare at that damn yoyo like that. It was nothing more than cheap blue plastic and weak string. Nothing special, but DiNozzo carried it with him every day, would stroke the deformed plastic like it was a block of gold.
He didn’t get it.
“Do you remember where it came from?” Tony asked when he finally asked just what was so special about that damn toy.
“Yeah,” he replied, remembering Tony’s first birthday with him. Abby had dragged them and Ducky to the movies, followed with a trip to the arcade. He’d won it in a twenty-five cent claw game and tossed it to Tony for no reason at all.
Tony smiled, leaning into his chest as his fingers continued to stroke the yoyo. “It was the first thing you gave me.”

Z is for zoo, Grey's Anatomy, anyone
Amelia squealed, pointing and laughing as George’s head was assaulted by an ostrich. “Papa! Look at Daddy!”
Alex laughed, hefting Amelia a bit higher on his hip as George darted away from the bird, rubbing his head. “Daddy got pecked.”
Amelia giggled.
“Who are you giggling at?” George asked, smiling as he took the four year old from Alex.
“You, Daddy!”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh!”
Alex shook his head, already knowing that George was never going to want to go to the zoo again, but also knowing if Amelia asked neither of them would be able to say no.
George put Amelia down, letting her run the three feet to the balloon man, two dollars in hand. “I got pecked by a bird.”
“I saw.”
“I’d rather be pecked by my husband.”
Alex smiled. “I think I can do that.”

Echo Of The Past

Mon, 25 May 2009 06:48:15 GMT

Title: Echo Of The Past
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 1,462
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: Despite the summary, this actually isn't a Post-Cyberwoman fic.
Note 2: I know! I'm supposed to be working on "Damaged Souls", but the bunnies called! Please remember that voting for the Children Of Time Awards is still open. And please vote for "Damaged Souls". It's under the Torchwood WIP section.
Summary: "Have you ever loved anyone, Jack?"

PLEASE REVIEW!

“Amara, I know how you must feel-“

Amara glared at Jack, hazel eyes ablaze as she shoved him hard in the chest. “You know nothing!” she snapped, “My fiance is dead!” She shoved him again. “Have you ever loved anyone, Jack?!”

“Have you ever loved anyone, Jack?”

His breath caught in his throat for a moment as he grabbed Amara’s wrists. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again when he heard Gareth yelp across the Hub. He turned his gaze from Amara’s furious face and to the blonde haired tech. “Gareth-”

“I think we have a problem, Captain,” he cut in, turning nervous brown eyes to him. He pointed at the piece of tech they’d found that morning and Jack noticed that something had switched it on. Jack closed his eyes, cursing under his breath. He’d had his suspicions about the device and he’d told Gareth to be careful.

“Sir? What’s-”

“Gareth, what did you do now?!” Zoe snapped, interrupting Alec. She placed her hands on her hips, pushing her white lab coat behind her. Her face went pale when she saw the whirring machine. “Damn it, Gar!”

“I didn’t touch it!” Gareth defended, “I was only running scans!”

“He was,” Alec said, eyeing the artifact warily.

“Well, a lot of good that does us,” Zoe scoffed, “We don’t even know what it—what just happened?”

The entire group went quiet, their only sound being Amara’s sniffles. Around them was still the Hub they’d worked in for ages, but it…wasn’t. It wasn’t their Hub anymore. The walls were less chipped, the couch under the Torchwood stamp wasn’t the one that Amara had insisted on buying a month before; this one didn’t hover. Everything was so…old.

“My God,” Gareth breathed, walking over to what should have been his workstation, “Will you look at these? They’re ancient!”

“I don’t care, Owen.”

“Tosh, lay off,” Owen huffed, “It’s just a little porn.”

“You’re ‘little porn’ is clogging up Mainframe,” Tosh said, sliding into her seat and turning to her computer.

“Wh-What? What’s going on?” Gareth asked, suddenly terrified as Tosh stepped right through him. He was shaking as he rejoined the group, pressing close to his equally terrified coworkers.

Jack’s chest clenched as they watched Tosh and Owen argue, biting his lip when Gwen entered.

“Honestly, Owen,” Gwen rolled her eyes, “No man needs that much porn on his work computer.”

“He shouldn’t even have it on his work computer,” Tosh grumbled, opening a new scan.

Owen snorted, falling into his chair and propped his feet on the edge of the desk.

“But that’s my…” Zoe said, trailing off as she watched Owen at her workstation.

“Why don’t they see us?” Alec asked, watching as Gwen went to his desk.

“We aren’t really here,” Jack said softly, “The device…it brings forward points of the past. I hadn’t been sure when we found it, but this…this time shouldn’t be here.”

It was so much like the Ghost Machine, bringing back images that had grown fuzzy in his mind. He’d never forgotten them, never forgotten this team. He remembered every one of them and though words and petty arguments grew fuzzy over time, he remembered each detail of their face, each aspect of their personality. He remembered everyone from his past in one way or another, just as he would remember his current team when he lost them as well.

“Woah, guys!” Amara exclaimed, pointing past the bickering figments of the past and straight to…

“Jack?!”

Jack chuckled, leaning against the door of his office as he watched Owen and Tosh argue, and cast a glance at Gwen. He shook his head, going back into his office.

His team turned astonished eyes to him.

“Captain,” Gareth said, “When are we?”

“2008,” he said, staring at the door his past self had disappeared through.

“That’s over two hundred years ago,” Amara gasped.

He nodded.

He’d left Cardiff after Gwen had died. She’d been the last remaining member of the team and with everyone gone, the Hub was suddenly so much bigger. Myfanwy was gone, flown right into the Rift one night. He hoped she’d been sent home, though he knew it was a long shot. He joined the Doctor again when he left and traveled for a good century and a half before they’d returned for a refuel and he couldn’t bring himself to leave. The Hub was as he’d left it, computers turned off, brochures strewn across the desk of the tourist office, papers still piled on his desk; no doubt, UNIT would be more than a little miffed that they were late. Seas of dust had gathered, but he’d cleaned that before he returned to work and recruited his current team.

He glanced at his team, cringing slightly as he saw them send each other short looks before they ran for what had been and still was his office.

“You’ve barely changed a thing,” Alec said, looking around and freezing as another man walked through him. He spun, eyes widening as he got a close look at the man that had perched himself on the corner of Jack’s desk. “Isn’t that the guy from your tin?”

Jack bit his lip, nodding once as he remembered returning to the Hub and finding his team scrambling to pick up the contents of the tin from when they’d dropped it. None of them had ever asked questions about the creased and yellowed photos and he’d never offered answers.

“Porn will be gone in the morning?” Jack asked, smirking from behind his coffee cup.

“As usual,” Ianto assured, taking a bite from one of the donuts on Jack’s desk.

“Looks like you’ll be staying late tonight.”

“Looks like.”

Jack grinned, putting his cup down and rising from his chair. He circled the table until he was standing between Ianto’s legs. His chest pressed against Ianto’s and his hands braced himself on the desk as Ianto’s own hands wrapped around his waist. He pressed his lips to Ianto’s neck once before kissing his lips. “Believe I still owe you that date.”

“That you do, sir.” Ianto’s head fell back as Jack’s hand drifted to his crotch and he moaned.

“Maybe another night.”

Ianto laughed and pulled Jack in for another kiss.

The scene faded, Ianto’s laughs seeming to echo off the walls as Jack’s office suddenly seemed too cramped. Jack set his jaw and went to his desk, sending a glance at his team that clearly told them to get out. He rose an eyebrow as Amara lingered in the doorway.

“Jack…I,” she lowered her gaze to the floor, “I’m sorry.” She returned her gaze to him, looking at him with more understanding than she had mere minutes ago, then turned on her heel and left, the door swinging shut behind her.

He sighed, one hand reaching for his tin. The picture on top was old and he peeled the two photos apart carefully, smiling gently at the group photo. His thumb traced over Owen, Gwen, and Tosh’s faces, but paused on Ianto’s, stroking gently. Those two photos had always seemed to stick together. He doubted his team had noticed it when they’d raced to replace everything.

With one last, gentle pull, he stared at the second photo.

Ianto.

He’d snapped it with the digital camera Tosh had brought. They’d taken it the same day as the group photo as they lounged on the beach. He’d taken a walk with Ianto, he remembered, pulled him away from the group and shared some kisses behind a large grouping of rocks. They’d climbed to the top and just sat there, Ianto lying between Jack’s legs, comfortable against his chest. They’d snapped a few shots together as they sat there—those had been lost in his travels with the Doctor, he recalled with regret—and it was that last shot as they stood and prepared to leave that Jack couldn’t resist.

Ianto had been staring out at the water, smiling as the water reflected off his eyes. One hand was cupped above his brow, blocking the sun from his eyes as he watched the seagulls, for once devoid of his suit. He’d been dressed more casually than he ever was, dressed in a white wife beater and his short sleeve button up that he himself had unbuttoned before they left the Hub. He hadn’t been able to convince Ianto to wear shorts, remembering the younger man’s shyness about the scars on his legs, caused by burning floors during Canary Wharf.

These were the last pictures of a time he’d never be able to get back.

Jack closed his eyes, ears reaching out as if they could still hear Ianto’s laughter.

Had he ever loved anyone?

Yes, yes he had.

The End

Night Time Talk

Sat, 23 May 2009 04:43:49 GMT

Title: Night Time Talk
Pairing: Jack/Ricky friendship
Word Count: 1,675
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Directly after That's Enough Of That
Summary: He had a stop to make before heading home.

It used to make him sick, the feeling of another man’s touch on his skin. It was too close, too personal. When he’d first been placed in foster care he hadn’t been able to be within five feet of his foster father without getting jittery. Margaret and Eli had never judged him for that, never judged him when he took the farthest seat from Eli at the dinner table. Dr. Fields had nodded—and probably noted down on that stupid pad of his—when he’d spent his first session in silence and flitting around the room on hyperactive feet.

It had taken him two months before he could be within a foot of Eli without his eyes searching for the nearest exit.

It took him six sessions with Dr. Fields before he was finally able to spend the allotted hour on the couch, five feet from the other man. It took another three before he spoke more than five words to the man.

He still sat in the back of his classes when he had a male teacher. He didn’t know those men, didn’t trust them like he’d come to trust Eli and Dr. Fields. It was an upside to being the drummer; they were set up in the back, whether it be in the room or on the field.

That progress had back peddled when Bob was put on parole. Eli had tried to put a comforting hand on his arm and he’d jumped a foot, heart beating a mile a minute as his brain ran wild with thoughts of the past and what his father could do. He’d returned to the window when Margaret had put him in the car and all but forced him to a session with Dr. Fields, spending the entire hour gazing out the window but not really seeing the cars flying across the road below.

A soft, morbid voice in the back of his head whispered equations accounting his weight and how long it would take for him to hit the pavement. On a clear, windless day, it would take him twelve point three seconds to hit the ground below, avoiding the cars. The impact would be enough to shatter his ribcage, probably killing him instantly.

He’d spent that week Bob was free on the verge of something. He didn’t want to think about equations anymore, how long it would take for him to fall, how fast his car would have to be going if he wanted to hit that wall just right, if the now half empty bottle of anti-anxiety medication would be enough to stop his heart. Dr. Bowman had told him he could talk to him, to not do anything stupid. He’d told him the truth, told him he wished he could be a Christian and he did, but the threat of Bob just around the corner made that stupid option just that more appealing.

He couldn’t look at lime green anymore without his heart speeding to the point of pain.

He’d cried when Adrian told him Bob was gone, that Jack had seen him break his parole and got him arrested. He’d slept with Adrian just after, felt her hands in his hair, more comforting than passionate. He’d been able to feel the tears leaking down his face before he buried it in Adrian’s bare shoulder.

They laid there for two hours after they were done, just lying there, not a word spoken between them. Adrian drifted off to sleep around midnight, but sleep wouldn’t grab him that night. He left just as it was turning two, slipping his shoes on once he was safely in the hallway. She’d be angry with him for leaving when morning came, he knew, and he knew he should be going home, Margaret and Eli were probably still sitting awake in their beds waiting for him, hours after they’d put his foster siblings to bed, but he didn’t. His feet moved of their own accord, through the parking lot and to the spot his car rested, moonlight reflecting off the silver. Soft rock was beating through his speakers, barely at a whisper when he pulled in front of a decorative mailbox proudly proclaiming it the Stone/Pappas Residence. He didn’t move from his car, just turned it off as he sat there, Margaret’s speeches about going green drilled into his head.

He didn’t know what he was doing there, sitting in front of the darkened house of a boy he hadn’t been able to stand a month ago. It was three in the morning and they had school the next day; though, he admitted silently to himself, he probably wouldn’t be there, not after everything that had happened recently. He could call it a Mental Health Day. The school already thought he was nuts.

The front door opened, artificial light breaking up the darkness as Jack’s half shadowed figure appeared on the step.

He climbed from his car with a breath, not bothering to press the lock button on his key ring. He’d already woken Jack apparently; there was no need to wake his parents. His hands were shoved deep into his pants pockets as he went up the walk, arms tensed straight enough that they pushed his already too loose jeans down a couple inches from his hips.

“There a reason you’re outside my house at three in the morning?” Jack asked, when Ricky stopped a foot in front of him. His hair was a mess, sticking up in all directions as he squinted tired eyes at the shorter boy.

“I…I just wanted to say thanks,” he replied, eyes on his shoes as he shifted from foot to foot.

Jack’s hands dropped from his face where he’d been pressing them against his eyes, staring at Ricky in the poor light. Ricky glanced up, catching Jack’s worried gaze for a second before his vision fell to the right. “He wasn’t going to leave you alone,” he said, echoing the words he’d said only days ago. He nudged Ricky’s arm with his elbow as he sat on the stoop, biting his lip as Ricky sat beside him.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just…I’m glad he’s gone.” He watched as Ricky nodded, noticing the other boy’s hand gripping the edge of the step. His knuckles were turning white. “Are you okay?”

Ricky’s eyes were downcast, his face shadowed, the light streaming from the still open door not doing much. He swallowed thickly, letting his eyes fall closed as his grip on the step tightened. “He wanted to sell the baby.”

He said it in barely a whisper, but Jack still heard it loud and clear. Those six words seemed to echo in a scream across the silent neighborhood. Jack’s own heart seemed to stop as an image of Amy and her growing stomach flashed across his mind. Ricky’s father had wanted to…what monster could sell a baby?

His hand cupped over Ricky’s shoulder, squeezing gently as he noticed a shaking in the smaller boy. He felt Ricky tense under his touch for a moment before relaxing and leaning against his side. Ricky didn’t stay like that long, only for a few seconds before he seemed to almost jump to his feet, running still shaking hands through his hair.

“I’ll see you at school.”

“Uh, yeah,” Jack said, “See you.” He stood as Ricky headed to his car, brushing the dirt from the back of his pajama bottoms, and turned. He stopped in his doorway, turning back as Ricky opened his car door. “Ricky,” he called out, nodding slightly as Ricky looked at him, “I know you wouldn’t have done it.”

Ricky blinked, just standing there as Jack disappeared into the house and the door closed. He shook himself, getting into his car, but paused before he put the key into the ignition.

“I know you wouldn’t have done it.”

The words echoed in his mind and he leaned his head back against the seat. His father had said that if he’d done it, he would leave and he’d be free. That was all he’d ever wanted as a kid as he hid beneath his thread-thin sheet and Bob had been offering him freedom.

Could he have been selfish enough to take it? Could he have taken an innocent child—his child—and given him to a man who still caused him to wake up screaming in the middle of the night? Could he have done that to Amy?

Her smile flashed across his closed eyes, lids acting as a movie screen as images flew by; her smile, that stumble at band camp, her face after their first kiss, interlocked hands, eyes closed and a tiny moan as they…

He never would have been able to do it. They made that baby together, a little life. There was no way he’d ever be able to hand their child over to a man that had taken away his innocence before he knew what it really was. He would protect his child with his life, anything to keep what happened to him from happening again.

His phone began to vibrate against the plastic of his cup holder and he jumped, startled. He reached for it, checking the caller ID first out of a newborn paranoia. The word home stared back at him and he closed his eyes as he flipped the phone opened and raised it to his ear. “I’m on my way.”

“Are you okay?” Margret asked, sounding tired and worried.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment, “I’m doing okay.”

“All right. Be careful.”

“I will.”

“And, Ricky?”

“Hm?”

“We’re going to have a talk about curfew in the morning.”

His head dropped as he groaned, letting the phone fall into his lap as the call disconnected. He listened to the car start, almost wincing as it sounded much too loud for just before four in the morning. He cast one more look at Jack’s house before he pulled out onto the street.

“I know you wouldn’t have done it.”

He knew it too.

The End

Final Entry

Tue, 19 May 2009 20:41:01 GMT

Title: Final Entry
Character: George
Word Count: 1,393
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: Okay, so I intended for this to be a GeorgeAlex fic, but I couldn't get it in at all, so it's come out as gen. Let me know if you guys want a sequel. If you do, that one will be slash.
Summary: It's coming to an end.

Spoilers: Spoilers for the season finale.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Hey, everyone.
Okay, it’s finally time. Three months later and I’m finally being released. No more hospital (until I come back to work), no more poking, no more prodding. The next time I come to this hospital, I’m going to be the doctor. It’s still a long way until I get there, but I will.
It all still seems like it’s a dream. I remember being on the street and pushing Amanda out of the way, but everything after that is a blur until I got to Seattle Grace. I guess I should be grateful that I don’t remember the pain from the impact or the pain before they doped me up with enough painkillers to kill an elephant. At least I don’t have those memories in my head. What I can remember…I remember writing on Meredith’s hand, trying to trace out “007” because there was no way I had the strength to actually write a name that I didn’t hate and I can remember (although it was blurry) the look on her face when she realized it was me.
I can still hear her “Oh, God”.
I don’t really remember the surgery they rushed me into after that.
But I do remember Izzie.
I don’t care what they say. I know it wasn’t a dream. I saw her. She was in her prom dress, the one she wore when Denny died. She stared at me and I stared at her and I knew, I knew that something wasn’t right, but I didn’t care. I was standing in front of my best friend, I was in one piece and she was healthy. Then I could feel a tug and she was fading away. I’d wanted her to come with me, but she didn’t move.
There are facts that I know about what happened after that.
Fact: Derek was able to bring me back after I flat lined.
Fact: I slipped into a coma and stayed like that for two weeks.
Fact: They put me under for another two so that my wounds could heal properly.
Fact: I was in a coma (natural and chemically induced) for twenty-nine days.
It still feels weird knowing that I missed a month of my life. Somewhere in my head, I know I heard snippets of conversations, Meredith talking about her and Derek getting married on a Post-It, Cristina telling me that I wasn’t allowed to die, my mom and brothers begging my dad to not take me with him. What I hate is that I had absolutely no sense of time. It’s disconcerting, waking up and wounds that your mind is telling you should be fresh and aching are healing and relatively pain-free. I knew my face had been destroyed in the accident, but when I woke up and demanded a mirror, I was looking at myself.
And this is the one time I’ll say it…I owe Dr. Sloan.
He pulled out every skill he had to fix my face, took the piles of pictures my mom threw at him and fixed me. It’s not exactly the same as before. My nose is a little smaller, my cheekbones are a bit higher, and my face is just the least bit shorter, but no one else could tell any of that. It’s just something you know about your own face. I just thank any god listening that I didn’t have to stare at myself with my face the way it was. I’ve seen pictures and that was more than enough.
There are still scars on the rest of my body, some almost invisible thanks to Dr. Sloan, others a little more obvious because of the size they’d been. But I can deal with scars. I’m alive.
It just kills me that Izzie isn’t.
It kills me that I missed her funeral.
I know it sounds insane, but I still wonder if maybe I could have changed it. Maybe I could have grabbed her hand and pulled her with me before Derek brought me back. That elevator was what took her to Denny, the real Denny, not the one her cancer made her hallucinate. That elevator was what took her away from Alex.
I didn’t see him much for the two months I was in the hospital following my coma. He’d come in sometimes, but he’d leave within seconds. I know it hurt him, another reminder that his wife was gone. They hadn’t even been married a week and he was already a widower. I never minded that he left as fast as he did. I didn’t know what to say to him.
I still didn’t know what to say to him when I move into Meredith’s today.
It was the best plan. We had to explain to my mother that I’d be surrounded by doctors just in case anything took a turn (which I’m praying to God nothing does). The Chief is setting their schedules so that someone will always be home. They’ll be the ones to help me with my physical therapy so I don’t have to keep going to the hospital and wearing myself out.
It’s going to be weird, moving back into my old room while all Alex’s things are still scattered around. Meredith told me that he’s been sleeping in Izzie’s room.
I am worried about him. He depended on Izzie and now she’s gone. He looks paler and thinner every time he walks in here. Meredith said that he hasn’t really been eating, can’t keep anything down. I just hope he’s able to before he’s the next one of us in a hospital bed.
I’m praying to God a lot more now and I just keep praying that he watches over our little family. I don’t think we can take another hit like this.
This accident was an eye-opener, is all I can say. It’s brought us all closer, because even though we saw death every day, none of us had ever thought those tragedies could happen to us. It made us realize just how easily everything can change. Meredith still gets all teary at the slightest mention of “007” and Cristina is a bit more human.
The day of the accident, I’d been ready to leave Seattle Grace and go off to the army, and now I’m not. When I’m fully recovered and ready to be a doctor again, it’s going to be at Seattle Grace. I don’t know the full details, but I do know that Dr. Hunt talked to some people. My name was withdrawn without a fuss. Honestly, I think that the accident was a sign that my place was here, that I was needed right here.
Meredith says I wouldn’t have looked good with a buzz cut anyway.
Cristina says I would have killed myself cleaning my own gun.
Alex hasn’t said anything.
It seems like yesterday that I was in Izzie’s room with her while she tried to decide whether or not to let Derek do the surgery and it feels like only hours ago that I was opening my eyes and seeing friends and coworkers above me as they rushed to save my life. It still hurts knowing that Izzie won’t be there when I get to Meredith’s. It still hurts knowing that I’ll never again will I see her smiling and covered in flour. But I know she’s in a better place now. She’s away from the pain of the cancer and the constant wonder of what will happen.
I still wish she was still here, though.
I wish that Alex could have had some kind of warning instead of just losing her the way he did.
I’m going to keep a closer eye on him. I know everyone else has been, but I need to keep my own on him too. It’ll be strange and it will hurt, but I think he needs someone to force him to talk before he runs.
So, yeah. I think I’m done. This is my final entry into this blog.
Joe, I want to thank you for pushing me to start this. This blog has been my outlet for everything these last two months and it’s helped more than you can imagine.
This is George O’Malley signing off for the last time.
Rest in peace, Izzie. I’ll never forget you. June 23, 1981 – May 14, 2009.

The End/TBC?

One Day

Fri, 15 May 2009 14:13:59 GMT

Title: One Day
Pairing: George/Alex and past one-sided Alex/OMC
Word Count: 1,243
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: All right, so, Leesa, I realize your birthday was yesterday, but I wasn't home to post this so...haha. I took your Alphabet request and turned it into your gift. You wanted "S is for shoulder, Grey's Anatomy, Alex/George" and here you go. Haha. Happy belated birthday, hun!
Summary: Alex has got an important call to make.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Alex smiled into the speaker of his cell phone as a familiar voice answered. “Hey.”

Alex leaned against the bathroom sink, staring hard at the reflection in front of him. Pale skin, a sick green-yellow around his right eye from where his father had decked him a week prior when he’d finally decided that enough was enough. A black eye, some other bruises and scratches; the worst injury had been his father’s broken wrist when he flipped the bastard.

Good riddance.

His mother was devastated, why Alex didn’t really know or understand, kicked him out for “pushing your daddy away”.

Now he was here, standing in the bathroom of his best friend’s house, his new home, and he couldn’t get himself to open the door.

Adam fucking Cassidy, all blonde hair and green-eyes as he towered over him at 6’5. He scowled at his mere 6’1. Adam was…Adam, the most loyal—to the point of annoying—friend he could have asked for in his soap opera life, always there with an unlocked window to his one story house because using the door was just so 1997.

And there he was, scrawny Alex Karev, seventeen with too many unanswered questions.

And in love with his best friend.

It was all Adam’s fault, he’d decided. Adam was fucking there for him when everyone else walked away. He was there with antiseptic and that damn frown every time he crawled in the window with a new injury. He was there with a car when he was feeling suffocated in their town of two hundred, ready to drive into the middle of nowhere so Alex could just breathe again without the eyes of people that knew what was happening at home but did nothing to stop it. He was there through Alex’s entire crisis when he began to wonder if he liked guys just as much as girls. He was there when Alex climbed in the window at two in the morning and said with a hoarse voice and rumpled clothes, “I’m bi.”

He was there to pull the six guys off him when word got out.

Alex jumped as someone began pounding on the door and Adam’s joking voice asked him if he’d fallen in.

Adam’s laughter echoed out of the phone. “So he does know how to dial a number! I was beginning to think you’d abandoned little ol’ me for them big shot docs.”

“Please. What big shot doc would help me fill Principal Miller’s car with lime Jello?”

“Good times, good times.” Alex could almost hear Principal Miller’s outraged screams across the small school campus. “So what’s got you making the not-so-cheap call to us common folk, Mr. City Man?”

“Dude, you aren’t even trying,” Adam complained, putting down his Play Station controller and staring at Alex as he did the same. He frowned, slapping Alex’s knee lightly with the back of his fingers. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Alex shook his head. “Nothing. Just-”

“If you say ‘tired’, I am gonna tell Old Man Jenkins that it was you that TP’d his farm last Halloween.”

“You helped!”

“Alex.” Adam sighed, looking at Alex. “I know that face. That’s your I-hate-my-life face. What’s up?”

“Can we get back to the game?” Alex asked, picking up his controller.

“You’re grades are fine, I know that. And you got your scholarship, so what is it? Girl trouble? Guy trouble?” He smiled, nudging Alex with his elbow when his friend went red. “All right, who is he?”

Alex shrugged Adam off, getting up off the bed and going to the cot Susan had set up for him against the opposite wall. “No one.”

Adam rolled his eyes, following Alex and dropping beside him. “Don’t give me that shit, Alex. It’s bothering you, so there’s obviously someone. You know you can tell me.”

“I really can’t,” Alex said with lowered eyes as he pulled his blue encased pillow into his lap.

“Alex, it’s me. You know you can tell me anything.”

Alex didn’t look at him. “I can’t. Seriously.”

“’Seriously’?” Adam echoed, hurt, “Why the hell not? I’m supposed to be your friend, man.”

Alex spun to look at him. “You are!”

“Then why can’t you tell me who it is?!” Adam snapped.

“Because it’s you, all right!” Alex bit his lip, returning his gaze to his lap. “There. Are you happy now?”

“Alex-”

“Adam, I know; not gonna happen.” Alex smiled weakly at him. “Look, I can sleep on the couch-”

“You’re staying right here,” Adam cut in before sighing and shaking his head, “Alex…I…”

“You don’t need to explain.”

“And if I want to?” Adam laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Dude, you’re gorgeous and if I was into guys, I’d be screwing you into the mattress right now.”

Alex snorted, nodding. “But you’re not.”

“I’m not,” Adam agreed. He took Alex’s chin in his hand and made his friend meet his eyes. Biting his lip for a moment, he leaned forward and kissed Alex gently. Alex was staring at him, shocked, when he pulled back. “You’ll find that person and it’s not me, but we’re in middle-of-nowhere Iowa, and you’re gonna get a whole lot further than the county hospital. You’re gonna find that person, man, woman, whatever, and you know that I’m gonna be standing right there next to you as your best man.”

Alex blinked back tears he didn’t want. “I know.”

And he did. It hurt now, hurt like hell, but he’d known from the beginning that it wasn’t a fairytale. He’d known Adam wouldn’t burst out with a sudden confession and kiss him with more than just lips lying on lips. It didn’t mean it hurt any less.

He made himself smile, wiping his face just to be sure when he stood and turned back to Adam. “Come on, I still need to kick your ass at Speed Racer.”

“It’s time for you to dig out that suit, man.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Alex smiled at George, echoing the one he could practically hear in Adam’s voice, and George returned the smile, just as bright. He pulled George against him so he lay against his chest, kissing his shoulder.

It had taken him a long time to get over Adam, took him a long time to be able to hear Adam say, “You know you love me,” and to know that he did as friends, but nothing more. He had his hits and misses; Keely, Blake, Mike, Hayley, Olivia, Izzie, Addison, Tyler, Rebecca, Izzie again. Then he fell into bed with George and never left.

Adam had been right. He was right that day in his bedroom. He was right that day in the airport when Alex wanted nothing more than to get in the car and hide from Seattle as it called his name.

“You’re gonna be great, Alex,” Adam said, hugging Alex close as the intercom announced the flight destined for Washington.

“I can stay at County. It’s small-”

“And completely boring. You’ve got them docs out there ready to teach you everything they know.” He smiled, teary, and shrugged. “You’re gonna love it there, maybe even find someone.”

He did.

“See?” Adam asked, “I’m always right. Now hand the phone over to whoever it is.”

Alex handed the phone to George, kissing his crown when he saw the nervous look. “It’s okay,” he whispered into George’s ear.

George swallowed, raising the phone to his ear. “Hi. This is George.”

The End

Video: My Hero Is You - Gibbs and Tony

Thu, 14 May 2009 02:00:27 GMT

Okay, so I had intended for this to be a slash video, but it came out seeming more father/son.

Take it as you will.

Hope you like.

Video: Ever Ever After - Spencer/Ashley

Thu, 14 May 2009 01:30:16 GMT

Just a South Of Nowhere video I made ages ago and never thought to post over here.

Fandom: South Of Nowhere
Pairing: Spencer/Ashley

Who He's Become

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:15:10 GMT

Title: Who He's Become
Character: Xander, Leverage team, Scoobies
Word Count: 6,593
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Note: This is a birthday gift to my lovely Kyra. =) Hope you like it, hun!
Spoilers: Takes place post-Graduation in Buffy and post-Second David Job in Leverage. Only real spoilers are if you don't know where the Leverage team has gone after Season 1.
Summary: Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Leverage crossover - Xander's cross-country road trip went a bit astray.

PLEASE REVIEW!

He never went back after graduation.

He was supposed to, but the cross-country trip had turned into cashing in his second piece-of-crap car and flying off to Europe, working his way through. His first couple months had been rough, jobless and saving his money for food rather than shelter. It had been summer, though, so when he’d curl on the thin blanket he’d bought at a second hand shop, he hadn’t really had to worry about freezing to death. Though, he had taken to wearing crosses around his neck and wrists, ready to protect him if a vampire came by at any point.

He knew they’d never forgive him for not coming back.

Did they think he was dead, turned and terrorizing some random town, or maybe lying nameless and dead in the middle of nowhere?

He’d left Sunnydale after graduation, ready to see what else the States had to offer. He’d wanted to see towns that didn’t have a growing vampire population. Then the engine dropped out of his car before he even got out of Oxnard, and left him stranded, his cell phone gone, smashed beyond repair in a mugging.

That was where he’d first met Elizabeth, dressed to kill in the middle of the Fabulous Ladies Night Club. She’d stood in the sea of barely dressed and barely legal men, and grabby, drunk women, standing tall in her suit as she conversed with the pudgy, shifty-eyed owner. The first night he’d seen her was the first night he’d danced.

He felt humiliated up on stage, face beet red and trying his best not to flinch away when slim fingers with glinting wedding bands would slip a bill into the hem of his too-small shorts. The bills were dirty and wet with whatever the women’s drink of choice had been, but it was money, and money was what he needed to get Uncle Rory’s car fixed so he could get out of here and go on with his trip as planned.

He kept his eyes focused on anything but the audience as he hooked his leg around the pole and slid down, prompting shouts from the women as he tried to ignore them and just how tight those shorts really were. Tiny and leather, he felt like he was out on display for these women and the occasional male, and technically that’s what he was doing right now. He wasn’t even supposed to be dancing. He’d been hired to wash dishes, but there hadn’t been much other choice, not when Lucas walked in, bruised and red-eyed, still—and understandably—upset from his beating the previous night, courtesy of their wonderful employer, Isaac. He’d sent Lucas home before the nineteen year old blonde had crossed the threshold, telling him to go home and rest, that he’d handle it.

He’d handled it right onto the stage.

Isaac had been less than happy to find out that one of his biggest moneymakers had taken ill, and it had taken everything in Xander to withhold the snide comment that was begging to come out and ask what Isaac expected when he forced these boys to dance. None of them had even wanted to be there, not Lucas, Caleb, Tim, Derek, Max, or Sam. None of them wanted anything to do with this place, maybe once upon a time when it had been a gag with friends or a short-time thing, but Isaac didn’t let them leave, flaunted his cash and his threats, made these boys—not a single over twenty—stay.

He closed his eyes as he rose back up the pole. He shouldn’t even be on this stage. His eighteenth birthday wasn’t for another week. But he couldn’t let Lucas stay here, not in the state he was in. God knows what Isaac had done to him beyond the beating. And still no one went to the police. Who’d care about a couple battered strippers?

He all but ran from the stage when the music stopped, ignoring the catcalls from the women. He could feel the leather shorts bunched up in the back, giving every woman a good view of the fact that there had been no way to fit underwear of any kind under the shorts. He stumbled back when he banged into a slim body, grabbing a delicate arm before she could fall back. “Sorry,” he grimaced as he noticed that it was the smartly dressed woman that Isaac had been speaking to, “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

She smiled softly, waving a hand. “It’s quite all right,” she said, her English accent reminding him of Giles and home, “I wasn’t either.”

He bit his lip. “Employees…um…we’re the only ones that are supposed to be back here.”

She blushed softly, looking a bit embarrassed. “I got a bit lost. I thought Mr. Chaucer and I were going to continue our conversation in his office.” She bit her lip, looking around. “I’d wanted to see if we could reach a compromise for his sculpture.”

Xander’s brows furrowed, thinking back to his first and only time in Isaac’s office. “You mean that evergreen thing?”

Her face lit up. “Yes! That. Isn’t it lovely?”

“Uh…yeah, sure.” He shook his head, pointing further down the hall. “His office is that way; all the way down and turn left. His name is on the door. You’ll have to wait for him, though. The door has about six locks.”

She giggled. “Six?”

He grinned slightly. “Just about.” He tensed a bit as he heard approaching voices. “I should…” he trailed off, pointing at the door of the dressing room.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she smiled at him, holding out a hand, “Elizabeth Abbott.”

“Xander Harris.”

She released his hand, taking a step towards the far end of the hall. “Left, you said?”

“Yup,” he replied, one hand on the door as the voices grew closer. The other guys were all still out dancing and he really didn’t feel like hanging around to find out just who the voices belonged too.

She smiled at him once more as she turned and walked down the hall, allowing him to duck into the dressing room.

The next day he’d come in to hear Isaac screaming and plates smashing as he yelled into a phone about his evergreen. None of the others had known what was going on, shrugging shoulders as police filed in and began to ask questions. Had they seen anyone in the hallway? Did they see anyone leave with the sculpture? Had there been anyone there yesterday that looked suspicious?

He hadn’t mentioned Elizabeth to the police, never had a chance to before one of the cops recognized Lucas’ bruised face from a missing poster from somewhere in Phoenix, and twenty minutes later the missing statue didn’t mean anything, not with Isaac being put in handcuffs and the cop talking about kidnapping and five years missing.

He’d only had time to slip the two hundred dollars he’d earned the night before into Lucas’ hand before he ducked out of the building and all but ran to his barely running car.

And there it was on the seat, a stack of hundreds and one tiny, emerald that he knew was from a branch on that damn evergreen sculpture. There was a little note beside the little baggie that held the gem, neat cursive just telling him to take care.

He’d traded in the car after that, getting in return a beaten yet working red ’84 Lincoln and drove back to Sunnydale and straight through. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been able to bring himself to stop. Maybe he wasn’t ready to go home to parents that were too drunk to even get his name right, or maybe he just wasn’t ready to go back at all. The others were moving on to college and where was he going?

He ended up in Portland, getting a job in a diner when his car battery finally died. Two months he spent, living the nine to five job, serving greasy, fattening burgers to strangers before he finally sat back and decided that he wasn’t going to find a car on his budget to get him cross-country. He cashed in his car again, pocketing the money and handing over enough to get a passport and a one-way plane ticket to England.

Why he chose England he hadn’t really been sure. He’d decided on Europe when he walked into the airport, but he’d had to wait another three hours for the flight to London when they’d had one going to Paris taking off in one. Part of him still wondered if there’d been some kind of subconscious hope that he’d run into Elizabeth again even though the other part of him knew he wouldn’t.

Another place, another job. This time working as a bartender at this hole-in-the-wall pub that had him checking every few minutes to make sure that there weren’t any weapons or pool sticks being waved around.

He looked up at the sound of an American voice, noticing a hint of a country twang, half of him expecting to see a cowboy. But the voice didn’t fit his mental image, instead of what he’d imagined, he saw a big, muscled man with long hair hanging in his face as he bent another man’s arm almost to the point of breaking. He let his head fall forward, dropping the dish rag as he hopped over the bar, narrowly missing the glass belonging to a man in an RAF that was eyeing his dryer shrunken jeans a bit too much. He ignored the man—though he was sure he felt a hand slap his ass—as he strode over to the pool table trying to look more confidence than he was.

“Still wanna rip me off?” the American asked, smirking as the man below him grunted, trying to break free.

“Uh…can you not do that in here?” Xander tried, looking to the ceiling for a moment when he was ignored. “Uh, excuse me.”

“Just take your sodding money!” the other man shouted. He sighed as the grip on his arm loosened, but cried out a second later as a crack sounded and his right index finger bent backwards. He groaned curses at the American, holding his arm to his chest when the hold on him was released and his wallet was dropped onto the pool table, completely empty.

“Interest,” the American said before the protest was voiced, “And you pissed me off.”

Xander turned at the sound of his name, and returned to the bar at his boss’ beckoning.

“Don’t get involved,” Evan said, shaking half brown, half gray hair as he placed a pint in front of a patron, “Not when he’s involved.”

“He?”

“Eliot,” Evan replied, waving the dirty dish rag in the direction of the American, “He’s not the kind of guy you want to piss off.”

Xander nodded, watching as Eliot finished counting the money and shoved it into his pocket as he grabbed a leather jacket from a chair. His eyes followed the other man from the bar, finally losing sight when the wooden door swung shut.

Eliot returned to the bar a couple more times in the next week before disappearing all together. Evan had shrugged, saying that he’d be back someday, always was. He didn’t come back before Xander left two months later for Paris.

It was raining when he arrived and he scowled, glaring at the rain as if it had purposely followed him from London. Three months of rain. He missed the sun.

He missed Sunnydale.

But he wasn’t going back. Not yet. He wasn’t done yet. What he wasn’t done with, he honestly wasn’t sure, but there was something out there. He knew it.

Maybe he couldn’t return to them. Maybe those months away had changed him; his appearance had. He’d lost the loud shirts back in Oxnard, in turn opting for jeans, a solid colored t-shirt, and—depending on the weather—a worn leather jacket or a gray cotton zip up. His hair hadn’t changed, hanging in his face a bit more than it had in high school, enough that it covered some of the still healing scar that marred his face; three inches long on the right side of his face, stretching from his temple down to his jaw, a wonderful gift from the millennium celebration when he tried to break up a fight and ended up in one verses a table corner. Sadly, the table corner had won and he’d won a trip to the A&E for a nice collection of stitches.

He avoided working in bars when he finally found a cringe worthy place that he could afford. The walls were cracked and there was a leaky ceiling in the corner of the kitchen, but there weren’t any bugs and it came with a bed, filthy and probably diseased, but it wasn’t a floor and he paid weekly.

He’d been working in a factory for a week when there was an accident that resulted in his arm spewing blood like a fountain and a hurried trip to the hospital yet again.

The doctor was getting agitated as he spoke to him, asking the same questions over and over. But he didn’t know French and the doctor apparently didn’t know English. He was getting dizzier by the second as the doctor stitched him up, leaning back in the bed, arm held out as he watched the needle thread in and out of his skin, pulling it back together.

“No…I…I don’t know,” Xander paused, trying to find the word that had been on the tip of his tongue a moment ago, “French. I don’t know French.”

The man in the bed beside him huffed, and Xander couldn’t focus hard enough to figure out if he was annoyed or not. He interrupted the doctor’s fiftieth repeat of the same question, speaking to the doctor in what he figured was French but was too tired to care. “Are you allergic to any medications?” he asked. It took Xander a moment to realize the man was speaking to him.

“Nope,” he replied, staring at the light above him, and watching as one became two.

The doctor sighed, probably relieved that he could stop asking. He turned an eye to the man this time, directing a question at the man that Xander finally realized was American too, like Eliot. Hey, maybe they knew each other.

“What did you cut yourself on?” the man asked.

“Factory,” Xander answered, watching the one light turn into three and begin to dance, “Hand slipped working on a saw.” He turned his gaze to the American man. “Am I gonna get fired?”

The man snorted, shaking his head and sending brown hair flying. He relayed the reply to the doctor, sitting back as the doctor turned away from him completely. Xander’s eyes followed the man’s hand to where they laid on the left side of his chest, a white bandage on bare skin with a small spot of red peeking through. It wasn’t growing.

The doctor spun to him, snapping something as the man tried to slide from the bed.

The man sighed heavily, settling back into the thin mattress.

“I don’t like hospitals.”

The man shook his head. “Neither do I.”

“The one back home had a demon in the basement.” He was fairly certain he wasn’t supposed to say that.

“Did it,” the man chuckled as spots began to join the lights in the dance across his vision.

A nurse scurried into the area, holding a phone to the American. “Monsieur Ford,” she said, holding the phone out to the man.

“Heh,” he laughed, “Like the car.”

“Like the car,” Ford agreed with a smile before he turned to his conversation.

Ford was gone by the time he woke up again, leaving him stranded in a hospital with his doctor that still didn’t speak English and a blood bag that made him think of vampires back in Sunnydale.

He ended up staying in Paris long enough that he came to know the language as well as he did his mother language. After he did indeed get fired from the factory, he ended up spending his following three years in the city bouncing between jobs. In those three years he didn’t contact anyone back in Sunnydale. He kept updated through keeping an eye on whatever means he could. He cried when he saw that Joyce had died, cried when Buffy followed. He cried again when Buffy came back.

He’d been working in a law firm as a security guard for a week when he decided that Paris was nothing more than a job cursed city for him.

“Monsueir,” a small woman said, nodding to him as she shut down her computer for the night, hours after closing.

He smiled back at her in reply, knowing from past experience that Madeline would decline any offer to have an escort to the ground floor. She wished him good night as she got into the elevator, waving as the doors slid shut and began the twenty-five floor descent, leaving him alone. He leaned over, switched off a light someone had left on, and looked up as he heard movement above him. He frowned, eyes on the ceiling as he walked to the door that led to the roof.

There was definitely someone up there. He could hear the sound of snow crunching beneath extra weight and his hand strayed to the gun he’d been issued. His breathing stilled as he pushed the door open, peeking around the heavy metal and cold winter air rushed at him.

And blinked.

His eyes followed a complicated twist of ropes before falling on…a girl.

Oh, great.

He stepped out into the snow, shivering against the near-Christmas chill as the girl spun to face him. She didn’t look scared or nervous. Hell, she didn’t even look cold. She was strapped up to a harness, standing dangerously close to the edge of the building.

Another blink.

“Uh…Madame?”

She grinned, sweeping her blonde hair up into a black cap before she waved a gloved hand at him. “You’re cute.”

Then she dropped.

Right off the roof.

The roof of a twenty-five story building.

Another blink.

“I am so fired.”

And he was.

He’d seen the police outside the next door museum the next morning, people shouting that the Caravaggio was gone and police cursing some blonde nut job named Parker. He’d been questioned. Why had he been up there? What had he seen? Why hadn’t he called the authorities? Had he seen her before?

He really didn’t know why he hadn’t called anyone. Oh, wait. Maybe it had been the mind numbing shock of seeing a girl his age jump off a building. In the end they’d let him go with a shake of their head and a request to turn in his ID, gun, and uniform.

He’d been back in the States by the time 2004 rolled around two weeks later.

He stopped at the crater that had become Sunnydale and stood there for a while, just standing and staring at the hole that had once been his home. And he closed his eyes, remembering how he’d panicked when he heard the news, how when he’d finally tracked down each of their numbers, he had called over and over, listening long enough to make sure he heard everyone’s voices before he hung up. He’d wanted to speak, wanted to say so much to them, but he hadn’t been able to, too afraid that they’d hate him by now. He hadn’t called, he hadn’t written, he hadn’t come back for the big battle, he hadn’t gone to Joyce or Buffy’s funerals.

He didn’t stay in California. This time his car—in much better shape than his last ones—had gotten to Des Moines before he got tired of driving and settled down for a year, working for a construction company. He’d liked it, building homes and buildings for the surrounding small towns. He’d gotten stronger doing it too, started working out and doing stretches that eventually turned into his imitations of things he remembered from seeing Buffy train. It was there in Iowa that he’d taken to hiding in the bookshelves of the local library, researching the mechanisms involved in bombs.

That soldier from that hellish Halloween was still in his head, memories of codes and regulations, and a more than a bit annoying voice telling him to cut his hair. He’d kept his hair shaggy out of spite, smirking internally every time the soldier would huff and grumble, but he’d followed the hyped up urge to learn about explosives. The soldier had been craving new knowledge since graduation.

God, that explosion.

Xander smiled at the memory of Sunnydale High going up in a happy mix of dynamite and gunpowder.

He’d had to plant explosives in the occasional building for a demolition before a rebuild, and those were fun for a while, watching a cloud of dust as a building collapsed in on itself. The thrill faded quickly, though, leaving the beginnings of a pyromaniac in him aching for more. He wanted the fire, the big explosion that made the ground beneath him shake and send stray, burning papers fluttering to the ground.

And those desires led him to an old abandoned farmhouse, far out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t another house for miles and the only beings inside were the nest of vampires he’d found when people began to turn up dead. He went when they were hunting, laid the explosives and waited for day when they’d all come back to hide from the sun.

Then he watched the house explode.

He may have used a bit more than was actually necessary, but the final product was so perfect. And he knew there was no chance of a vampire escaping that.

He arrived in Philadelphia on his twenty-third birthday and spent the day in a crappy motel room, browsing the classifieds with cheap travel sized bottles of alcohol.

Another construction job, more unsatisfying explosions. He’d been there for only a few weeks when he’d run into their computer guy Alec. They had hit it off, and though Alec and Willow were completely different kinds of computer genius, he’d liked the other man, had fun watching Alec set up the simulations of the explosions on his computer, calculating this and that, making sure that it would be big enough to send the building down and small enough that they didn’t have to worry about injuries.

He jerked as a balled up piece of paper smacked him in the back of the head and turned, launching the ball back at Alec. His face split into a grin that he knew shouldn’t be there when he saw the excited gleam in Alec’s eyes. “Time?”

Alec nodded and Xander jumped to his feet, following the other man.

It had taken them two weeks to plan it, and now, on the nine month mark of his employment, they were doing it.

Alec had noticed withdrawals from accounts that weren’t being used for the jobs, noticed every withdrawal slip had the greasy finger stains from their French fry gouging boss, Michael Miller. It had been happening for years, thousands upon thousands missing, all of it probably going into that Hummer that Michael was obsessed with.

Alec hadn’t wanted him to know, hadn’t wanted him involved, but years of Sunnydale and sneaking around his house—trying not to wake his parents with their never ending hangovers—had taught him how to walk quietly and he was able to see what Alec was working on before his shadow was cast over the computer and Alec exited out.

He didn’t have a big role on the computer end of what they were doing. He was no Willow and he sure as hell was no Alec. He could barely work a computer.

Explosions on the other hand, those he could do.

It seemed fitting, to blow up that Hummer. It had almost run him over more times than he could count and if he was going to be honest, it had a huge gas tank and the explosion…it would look awesome.

He should have felt guilty or even scared of what they were planning to do. Alec was hacking into God knows what, bringing the insurance on Evan’s Hummer to some ungodly number. His job was to blow up the thing. Insurance fraud wouldn’t look good when the investigators came and it would lead an investigation that would eventually uncover the embezzlement.

He figured he could cancel out some of the guilt with the knowledge that no one was going to get hurt…at least not physically in Michael’s case. They’d waited until everyone had cleared out, waited a couple more hours just to be completely sure.

Alec had lured Michael away with an e-mail from some higher ups telling him that he had to drive one of the trucks out to Vero Beach. He’d had to leave the Hummer and that gave them the chance they needed. He’d be heading back around now, and with the right amount of coincidences, Michael was going down.

“All rigged?” Alec asked as Xander came out from beneath the car.

Xander smiled wide. “Like a dream.”

Alec had taken some money out for them and added in a fee on Michael’s end for further add-ons for the car. They’d each be getting a couple grand, not much, but enough to get him to where ever he decided to wander after this. He was done with Philly, done with the boring explosions in construction, done with the greasy boss that he’d hated from the get go.

Xander was almost bouncing as he waited for Alec to give him the signal. His latex-gloved hand was clutching the remote, ready to put the Hummer in a hundred charred pieces. At the signal, all that could be heard was the explosion and the soft chuckles coming from the two men dressed in black. They both smirked as Xander placed the remote in the foam ceiling tile, replacing it just a bit off kilter, enough for the police to notice. They’d used the garage door opener that Michael was always forgetting at the site and though the explosion could have been so much bigger than it was, they needed it to look amateur. Michael didn’t have the knowledge it took to build the kind of bomb the soldier in Xander was aching for.

The explosion had looked cool, though. Fire, smoke. He’d been smiling as he and Alec separated into their own packed cars. Both were leaving Philadelphia, though neither knew where the other was going. They hadn’t even known where they themselves were going.

He’d driven to Miami from there and that time he really had settled down. He got a nice apartment, furnished it with things that he actually liked, he got to know his neighbors. Mrs. O’Connor in 31B made him lasagna every Thursday, always said he was too thin. He’d been sitting down in front of his laptop with a warm chunk of it when the IM had popped up.

He frowned as a pop-up interrupted his browsing, asking him if he wanted to accept a message from someone with the screen name BananasAreGood. He accepted out of curiosity, putting his eBay search to the side for the moment.

BananasAreGood: Hey, man.

Xander blinked. The name sounded familiar, but he just couldn’t…no way. It couldn’t be.

ItAllGoesBoom: Alec?
BananasAreGood: At your service.
ItAllGoesBoom: How’d you get this? I didn’t get it until after Philly.
BananasAreGood: You insult me. You think I wouldn’t be able to track you down? :P
ItAllGoesBoom: And suddenly I feel a lot less safe.
BananasAreGood: All in a day’s work, my man.
BananasAreGood: I got a question for you, though.
ItAllGoesBoom: What?
BananasAreGood: You still doing explosives?
ItAllGoesBoom: A bit.

He smiled softly, thinking of the bomb he’d slipped into a vampire’s pocket the night before. Burning ash and smoke everywhere.

ItAllGoesBoom: Why?
BananasAreGood: How quick can you get to Portland?

He’d made it in three days, the excitement pushing him to break enough speeding laws to make Buffy look like a good driver. He made a stop at the old diner, smiling at the head waitress that was still there when he went to the counter and ordered a coffee to go. It was just past ten in the morning when he pulled into the parking lot at the address Alec had given him.

He stared up at the building, smiling softly as he walked in, walking straight to the directory to double-check the floor that Alec had told him. Leverage Consulting & Associates…ah, top floor. “Going up in the world,” he murmured as he stepped into the elevator and pressed the correct button. He smirked slightly as the doors slid shut and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “But by no doubts legally.”

He hummed softly, going along with the tune of the elevator music, still humming when he exited and stopped in front of the office door.

And stopped stock still at the sight of the woman adjusting unlit candles at the front desk.

“Elizabeth?”

She turned, eyes watching him for a moment as she tried to fit a name to the face. Her mouth dropped open a fraction as she added seven years to his face and realized who she was staring at. “Xander? What…what are you doing here?”

Xander opened his mouth only to shut it again as Alec came into the room and threw an arm over his shoulder.

“Hardison, you know him?” she asked.

“Sophie Devereaux, meet the explosives expert I mentioned, Xander Harris,” Alec said, smiling. He paused, looking confused for a moment. “You two know each other?”

“Sophie?” Xander echoed, confused, “Your name’s Elizabeth…”

Sophie nodded, stepping forward. “For a time.”

“You left the…”

“I did.”

Xander really didn’t know what to say, his mind was full of questions, but he didn’t know which to ask first. Why was she here? How did she know Alec? Why was she going by Sophie? Had she lied to him about her name? Probably, he figured. Why did she leave him the money and the emerald?

Why is Ford standing in the doorway?

Xander blinked as the man stared at him.

“I know you.”

“Paris, 2001.”

“The hospital,” he said, remembering. He smiled slightly, looking at Xander closely. “You’re sufficiently more coherent this time.”

He laughed, nodding as he got a closer look at the man beside Ford.

Eliot.

Seriously?

He began to laugh again, harder this time, knowing full well that the four other people in the room were looking at him like he’d grown another head and that Ford was probably rethinking his last comment. He bent at the middle, arms around his stomach.

“Xander? Dude, what are you…”

He kept laughing, pointing a finger at Eliot. “’99. Eddie’s Pub. London.”

Eliot chuckled softly. “You’re the bartender.”

“Yep,” he laughed, looking up at Eliot as he suppressed the random laughter.

“Dude, do you know everyone here?” Alec asked, incredulous.

“I don’t know. Mayb—oh, you are kidding me!”

Across the room were a set of windows and right outside them was a blonde on a harness, slipping inside.

The blonde from the rooftop.

The blonde that had cost him his job.

The blonde that jumped off a freaking twenty-five story building.

She unclipped the harness, looking at him as she came up and got right in his face.

“Uh…hello.”

He could hear Alec chuckling beside him.

She smiled at him and gave a decisive nod. “You’re still cute.”

It had been weird as they gathered in the conference room and Alec filled him in on everyone and what they did. He listened, learned Ford’s first name and the details of the job Alec had contacted him about. Parker had looked excited when Alec told his team that he did explosives.

He helped them with the job, got to blow up the yachts of some drug smugglers that had killed this couple’s daughter with tainted drugs.

Then he went back to Miami.

He was back in Portland in a week, settling into Alec’s guest bedroom until he could find his own place and filling his friend’s fridge with enough lasagna from Mrs. O’Connor to last them a good six months. She’d been sad when she saw him packing up his car, gave him a hug and a maroon lipstick colored kiss on each cheek before he pulled out of the complex for a final time. He’d only been there for just over a year.

He’d realized as he was unpacking a suitcase into an empty dresser that his life had truly changed since he left Sunnydale. Back then, everything had been measured in hours and days, life too unpredictable to plan for things long term. He measured things in years now; a year here, a year there. He could plan things now and know that unless something went wrong in a job, he’d be able to keep them. He didn’t have to worry about vampires and apocalypses. He still saw the odd vampire, but they weren’t like back in his hometown.

It seemed fitting that a year later, he and the others were working a job in Cleveland.

“X-Xander?”

Her voice was quivering and Xander knew that in time, the shaky voice would be replaced with yelling, but there wasn’t time for him to wait. He smiled at her, smiled at each of them. “Hey.”

“You don’t just say hey after disappearing for eight years!” Then she was hitting his chest, crying into his shirt as her tears darkened the gray fabric. “We thought…we thought you were dead.”

He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her crown as he rocked them both. “I’m sorry, Wills. I’m sorry.” His eyes fell on his team before they closed and he held on tighter.

He should have called, should have told them that he was okay, but he never had. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to stop when he came through after his disastrous road trip and as time went on, he’d kept finding reasons to not pick up the phone; he was on his way out, they might not be there. Eventually he figured that a call wouldn’t matter, that by now, he was just a memory to them and that what happened to him was nothing more than a distant question. He’d never changed his name, always figured that if they really wanted to find him, they would. Maybe both sides had just been scared about what they’d find out.

“You left.”

Buffy’s voice was soft, but he opened his eyes and opened an arm for her. She took the offer and pressed herself against him just as much as Willow was. She kept whispering those two words in a mantra as she held him and he looked to Giles, hearing the older man’s unspoken question of why. He didn’t have an answer, not one that would make up for all this lost time.

A soft cough behind them made the girls pull away, wiping at their cheeks.

Nate looked apologetic. “Xander, we need to leave.”

Xander nodded, taking a look at his old friends once more. He didn’t ask how or why Faith was there, didn’t question the identity of the woman whose hand Willow was clutching, didn’t ask who all these strangers were. He looked at Dawn who still stated at him in shock, probably remembering when she was little with her crush on him. She stood beside Buffy, looking so grown up that it made him wish he’d been there all those years. Buffy was still sniffling, putting on a brave face for her sister, but they both knew that it didn’t matter. Giles was cleaning his glasses and Xander smiled at the image, remembering the high school library that didn’t exist anymore. Willow kissed the cheek of the nameless woman before letting go of her hand and approaching him again.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered.

“Need to, Wills,” he whispered back, slipping a card into her hand, “My number’s on the back. You won’t lose me again.”

She sobbed, holding the tiny paper card to her chest as she nodded. Teary eyes searched his face and her hand rested on his cheek. “You’ve changed.”

“Yeah.”

“You have a scar.”

“No big,” he shrugged, “It’s not like I lost an eye.”

“Xander,” came Nate’s voice again, not angry, just reminding him that as much as he wanted it, they didn’t have time for a long reunion. They had to leave.

He wiped one last tear from Willow’s face and stepped back. His smile was amused when Parker bounded up beside him, holding onto his arm like an excited child.

“Is it time yet?” she asked, bouncing slightly.

He freed his arm, checking his watch. “Almost.”

“Should they move?” Sophie asked as Xander dropped his arm over Parker’s shoulder and began to walk away with his team.

Xander shook his head. “Only some heat is gonna reach this far.”

“Heat?” Buffy sounded confused as she called after him, “What do you mean-”

The rest of her question was deafened by the explosion, all boom and flames destroying the crypt behind them and every hint of its vampire inhabitants and papers detailing the trade business that had been giving young girls to vampires from their human associate. The vampires were gone and the human was in police custody, a little roughed up thanks to Eliot, but alive enough to answer to the charges of the files Alec had altered, erasing any supernatural element.

Parker giggled, bouncing a bit more beneath Xander’s arm.

Xander kept walking, forcing himself to not look back, not at the explosion and not at his old friends. A part of him wanted to stay, wanted to be a Scoobie again, but there was a larger part that was telling him that his time with them was past, that he belonged here now. He’d had fun with them, but he hadn’t been able to really contribute like he could with the team. He played a part now, they actually depended on him for things.

He loved Willow and everyone, but they didn’t need him.

He’d had to tell the team about the things that went bump in the night back when one of their marks had turned out to be a demon. The team was learning and adjusting to the new challenges and more of their marks were taking on a supernatural element. He’d see his old friends again. Sooner or later another job would cross and their groups would mesh. Willow and everyone would learn in time about who he was now and he’d have to handle their reactions when they did.

But that was all in due time. For now, he and the others had to get the hell out of Dodge.

“Did it really need to be that big, Xander?” Nate asked, sighing when Xander did nothing more than quirk an eyebrow at him.

Alec laughed. “Of course it had to be.”

“It was a bit large,” Sophie commented, shaking her head free of her ponytail.

Parker tugged on Xander’s sleeve, sending a pleading look to Nate. “Can we do it again?”

“There’s something wrong with you.”

Xander smiled. “We know.”

It was time to go home.

The End

Letting Go

Mon, 11 May 2009 02:39:59 GMT

Title: Letting Go
Character: George, George/Alex
Word Count: 266
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Summary: George has to let go.

Spoiler: This is set post our lovely one hundreth episode "Now Or Never".

PLEASE REVIEW!

They hadn’t ended with shattered glass on the floor as they screamed.

They’d just known. It had been silent when they looked at each other and realized that even though they loved each other, they weren’t going to work. Neither had cheated, they’d barely fought, but things just hadn’t worked.

George let his heart heal, tried to move on even though his heart couldn’t really let go. He watched the person he loved move on, move back to an old flame. He watched the cancer not only eat away at one life, but at two. He watched the pain grow with every day that more things drifted into that hospital room with a reminder that the room that had belonged to hundreds was becoming home to yet another. He watched nervous and excited eyes shining under the lights of the church.

He walked Izzie down the aisle, handed her to Alex and ignored the pang in his chest when he took another step away from a person he still loved. He listened to Alex’s vows and blinked away the tears that threatened to blur the scene before him.

They kissed early and he smiled despite himself, remembering spontaneous kisses that he wished were still on his lips. He listened as Alex was told to kiss his bride.

He swore to God that it felt like he’d been stabbed when they kissed, this time sealing the marriage.

They weren’t going to have another chance to make things work.

Alexander Michael Karev had married Isobel Katherine Stevens.

This time he really had to let Alex go.

The End