Misc. meme fics
Nov. 24th, 2012 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonOne-sentence fics:
1. They exchanged token gifts each time they met afterward, so that they could never forget again.
2. Ellen liked Mary far too much to keep her hung up in the same room as the other portraits; her parents never understood what she meant when she said they "got along," or the strange smile with which she said it, and before long, the fire changed all that anyway.
3. On perhaps half a dozen occasions, he thought that he would go get the contract signed after all and slip it back into the box, no harm done - but given enough time (usually not very much time), Johannes would always say or do something that made it unthinkable.
Longer commentfics:
1. FE8, Rennac/L'Arachel, Hershey kisses (urban fantasy AU)
"I'll pay you in kisses," she said, and Rennac was 99% certain he'd heard that wrong. Then again, he'd thought he had been hearing wrong when she told him she had just destroyed a city bus for leering at her or that she was inviting one of the zoo lions over for tea. It turned out, each time, that his hearing was absolutely fine and Princess L'Arachel was insane. There were so many bats in her belfry, he thought, that there wasn't even a belfry anymore - only more bats.
Granted, she was a princess of the Fair Folk and he had no right to expect any differently. But he was hardly going to let that stop him.
"Run that by me again?" he said, in case he really had misheard this time.
"I will pay you," she said very slowly, "in kisses."
He considered this. It was not entirely an unappealing prospect. There had to be a catch somewhere. "From you, Princess?" He returned his attention to the newspaper. "I'll only accept cash."
"But a kiss has so much more value," she said. "It's sweeter and tastes better."
He held the newspaper up a little higher so that he would not start studying her lips. He had always wondered whether she used some kind of weird magical Fair Folk lipstick or they were just naturally that color - green, matching her hair. It should have looked off-putting, but somehow it very much... didn't. It worked somehow, with the alien pallor and the shimmering many-layered dresses and whatever the hell was going on with her eyes (he was not sold on the sixth finger yet).
"It's really not such a very difficult task," she said, which in L'Arachel language meant he could probably expect to lose a thousand dollars or get hit by a motorcycle. "Moderately challenging" tasks meant he could expect both. "Do be reasonable, Rennac dear. I don't make this kind of offer to everyone."
"Pay up front," he said, sarcastically, knowing she never would, "and thy will may be done. May."
But then, suddenly, the breakfast table was covered in small silver-wrapped milk chocolates. Rennac lowered the paper slowly to take a look, hoping that had not actually just happened. It had. "Oh, goddammit."
L'Arachel beamed at him. "Well, I'll just leave you to get ready, then. Don't forget a hat." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "And possibly a socket wrench."
And then she was gone. He didn't even like chocolate.
2. Raffles, Bunny saves the day
It was not a very good safe. Admittedly, and despite my long association with Raffles, I still understood relatively little of such matters - he so seldom saw fit to disclose anything of use until it was far too late - but I did recall his deriding this particular brand to me once. I supposed that, if this were generally understood to be an inferior quality of safe, that must only add to the insult to my friend. It was a large one, at least, which would afford him room to breathe. The greater danger was that I would be unable to finish the operation before I was discovered.
There was no sense bothering with the rock-oil. That would slow me down, and anyone who might be alerted by the sound of the drill knew well enough where to find me. I called forth in my memory every safe I had ever seen Raffles crack, and with a great effort to still my hands, I fitted a bit into the brace. It should be a simple matter of boring holes around the lock, and then - well, if Raffles had considered these safes too easy, I might hope that there would be no surprises awaiting me after that first task was done.
The noise was awful, rivalled only by the pounding of my heart and the deathly silence from within the safe. Several times the drill slipped in my hands and across the surface of the safe door, screeching hideously and agitating my nerves still further - and I am quite sure they did not need the help. I endeavored to do exactly as Raffles had that first night, when I had watched with such rapt attention. I knew that it had taken him nearly an hour to complete this step, and that, amateur that I was, it might take me far longer - but each second pressed on me with the weight of days. Each second seemed to infinitely magnify the probability that I would be apprehended and the both of us would die.
Ultimately, I did succeed, and the safe yielded to me - but I could feel no great pride in my accomplishment at the time, for from the moment I opened the door, my attentions were aimed at keeping the unconscious form of A. J. Raffles from crumpling to the floor. I was able to haul him clear of the safe and ease him to the ground a bit more gently, whereupon I noticed the cut on his brow and a residual whiff of chloroform. I think that even if I had planned any further than the moment of rescue, I would have forgotten those plans in that moment. I determined to stand over him until he wakened, and thought I should kill anyone who came upon us before then or who tried to take me away from him.
His eyelids fluttered. "Bunny?"
I had never felt such relief in my life. "Yes."
He began to look around him, and the disbelief in his face then is something I will long cherish. "You've really done it." He sat up slowly, probing the edges of the cut with his fingers. "I suppose I needn't tell you what a clever trap it was."
"It seemed an obvious one to me," I said. "Perhaps if you were less smug, or were occasionally in the habit of sharing information with your accomplice, this would never have happened."
Raffles considered this for a moment, and for that moment I almost began to think I had made an impression. "It does make for terribly exciting sport, though," he said, and if it would not have defeated the entire purpose, I could have throttled him on the spot. Instead I collected the safe-cracking apparatus and helped him up. By the time we returned home, he had concocted a plan for retaliation, and I was more than prepared to listen.
3. Johannes Cabal, the end of The Fear Institute. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER, naturally.
As Horst approached the garden wall, he was struck by a memory: the figure now slumped over by the gate - looking marginally less cadaverous in his mind's eye - looked up at him from behind those ridiculous smoked glasses and said matter-of-factly, "I always hated you." That memory stayed with him as he closed the distance, but it ceased to matter the moment he found a pulse in his brother's throat.
No. It had stopped mattering long before that.
It helped that he had never believed it to be entirely true. Oh, Johannes had probably thought it was at the time, but Johannes was a bit of an idiot sometimes, in a number of novel and surprising ways and in direct proportion to his brilliance.
He thought of that moment and everything after - that entire damned year with the carnival - and none of it mattered. Unlike some people he could mention, he was not required to pretend to have a rational reason for everything he did. He unceremoniously hoisted his brother off the ground and opened the gate.
1. They exchanged token gifts each time they met afterward, so that they could never forget again.
2. Ellen liked Mary far too much to keep her hung up in the same room as the other portraits; her parents never understood what she meant when she said they "got along," or the strange smile with which she said it, and before long, the fire changed all that anyway.
3. On perhaps half a dozen occasions, he thought that he would go get the contract signed after all and slip it back into the box, no harm done - but given enough time (usually not very much time), Johannes would always say or do something that made it unthinkable.
Longer commentfics:
1. FE8, Rennac/L'Arachel, Hershey kisses (urban fantasy AU)
"I'll pay you in kisses," she said, and Rennac was 99% certain he'd heard that wrong. Then again, he'd thought he had been hearing wrong when she told him she had just destroyed a city bus for leering at her or that she was inviting one of the zoo lions over for tea. It turned out, each time, that his hearing was absolutely fine and Princess L'Arachel was insane. There were so many bats in her belfry, he thought, that there wasn't even a belfry anymore - only more bats.
Granted, she was a princess of the Fair Folk and he had no right to expect any differently. But he was hardly going to let that stop him.
"Run that by me again?" he said, in case he really had misheard this time.
"I will pay you," she said very slowly, "in kisses."
He considered this. It was not entirely an unappealing prospect. There had to be a catch somewhere. "From you, Princess?" He returned his attention to the newspaper. "I'll only accept cash."
"But a kiss has so much more value," she said. "It's sweeter and tastes better."
He held the newspaper up a little higher so that he would not start studying her lips. He had always wondered whether she used some kind of weird magical Fair Folk lipstick or they were just naturally that color - green, matching her hair. It should have looked off-putting, but somehow it very much... didn't. It worked somehow, with the alien pallor and the shimmering many-layered dresses and whatever the hell was going on with her eyes (he was not sold on the sixth finger yet).
"It's really not such a very difficult task," she said, which in L'Arachel language meant he could probably expect to lose a thousand dollars or get hit by a motorcycle. "Moderately challenging" tasks meant he could expect both. "Do be reasonable, Rennac dear. I don't make this kind of offer to everyone."
"Pay up front," he said, sarcastically, knowing she never would, "and thy will may be done. May."
But then, suddenly, the breakfast table was covered in small silver-wrapped milk chocolates. Rennac lowered the paper slowly to take a look, hoping that had not actually just happened. It had. "Oh, goddammit."
L'Arachel beamed at him. "Well, I'll just leave you to get ready, then. Don't forget a hat." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "And possibly a socket wrench."
And then she was gone. He didn't even like chocolate.
2. Raffles, Bunny saves the day
It was not a very good safe. Admittedly, and despite my long association with Raffles, I still understood relatively little of such matters - he so seldom saw fit to disclose anything of use until it was far too late - but I did recall his deriding this particular brand to me once. I supposed that, if this were generally understood to be an inferior quality of safe, that must only add to the insult to my friend. It was a large one, at least, which would afford him room to breathe. The greater danger was that I would be unable to finish the operation before I was discovered.
There was no sense bothering with the rock-oil. That would slow me down, and anyone who might be alerted by the sound of the drill knew well enough where to find me. I called forth in my memory every safe I had ever seen Raffles crack, and with a great effort to still my hands, I fitted a bit into the brace. It should be a simple matter of boring holes around the lock, and then - well, if Raffles had considered these safes too easy, I might hope that there would be no surprises awaiting me after that first task was done.
The noise was awful, rivalled only by the pounding of my heart and the deathly silence from within the safe. Several times the drill slipped in my hands and across the surface of the safe door, screeching hideously and agitating my nerves still further - and I am quite sure they did not need the help. I endeavored to do exactly as Raffles had that first night, when I had watched with such rapt attention. I knew that it had taken him nearly an hour to complete this step, and that, amateur that I was, it might take me far longer - but each second pressed on me with the weight of days. Each second seemed to infinitely magnify the probability that I would be apprehended and the both of us would die.
Ultimately, I did succeed, and the safe yielded to me - but I could feel no great pride in my accomplishment at the time, for from the moment I opened the door, my attentions were aimed at keeping the unconscious form of A. J. Raffles from crumpling to the floor. I was able to haul him clear of the safe and ease him to the ground a bit more gently, whereupon I noticed the cut on his brow and a residual whiff of chloroform. I think that even if I had planned any further than the moment of rescue, I would have forgotten those plans in that moment. I determined to stand over him until he wakened, and thought I should kill anyone who came upon us before then or who tried to take me away from him.
His eyelids fluttered. "Bunny?"
I had never felt such relief in my life. "Yes."
He began to look around him, and the disbelief in his face then is something I will long cherish. "You've really done it." He sat up slowly, probing the edges of the cut with his fingers. "I suppose I needn't tell you what a clever trap it was."
"It seemed an obvious one to me," I said. "Perhaps if you were less smug, or were occasionally in the habit of sharing information with your accomplice, this would never have happened."
Raffles considered this for a moment, and for that moment I almost began to think I had made an impression. "It does make for terribly exciting sport, though," he said, and if it would not have defeated the entire purpose, I could have throttled him on the spot. Instead I collected the safe-cracking apparatus and helped him up. By the time we returned home, he had concocted a plan for retaliation, and I was more than prepared to listen.
3. Johannes Cabal, the end of The Fear Institute. SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER, naturally.
As Horst approached the garden wall, he was struck by a memory: the figure now slumped over by the gate - looking marginally less cadaverous in his mind's eye - looked up at him from behind those ridiculous smoked glasses and said matter-of-factly, "I always hated you." That memory stayed with him as he closed the distance, but it ceased to matter the moment he found a pulse in his brother's throat.
No. It had stopped mattering long before that.
It helped that he had never believed it to be entirely true. Oh, Johannes had probably thought it was at the time, but Johannes was a bit of an idiot sometimes, in a number of novel and surprising ways and in direct proportion to his brilliance.
He thought of that moment and everything after - that entire damned year with the carnival - and none of it mattered. Unlike some people he could mention, he was not required to pretend to have a rational reason for everything he did. He unceremoniously hoisted his brother off the ground and opened the gate.
