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tigriswolfTitle: I pass like night, from land to land
Fandom: Leverage
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Coleridge.
Warnings: implied child abuse
Pairings: none stated
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 155
Point of view: third
Prompt: weeeeeeee
Back before she was Parker, when she was a little wisp of a girl-child, easily broken, she used to hide on the roof. She was quick and graceful like a cat, and no one ever thought to look for her there. Sometimes, she’d spend days alone on top of the house, moving with the sun to keep warm or cool, depending on the time of year.
The roof never hurt her. Even when she jumped, she’d find something to land on or grab on the way down. Humans hurt her, not buildings. And the higher the buildings got, the more things she’d find to catch herself with.
Soon enough, she began making harnesses and carrying rope, and the buildings got taller and taller, and she could almost taste the clouds.
(“Aren’t you ever afraid?” Hardison asks her, when they dangle forty-five floors up.
“Not of buildings,” she answers. Buildings have always been her friends.)
Title: sin of living
Fandom: White Collar
Disclaimer: any you recognize aren’t mine
Warnings: pre-series; child abuse; character death\
Pairings: mentions of Neal/Kate
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 630
Point of view: third
Prompt: green
The first con Neal ever pulled, he was seven. Neal’s name was Jake back then, and his baby brother was only four, a slight boy Neal always calls Matty in his mind.
He told Matty to hide and not come out till Jake fetched him, and then Jake went to their ‘caretakers’ (even now, Neal can’t think of them without pain and fear and hatred and so much sarcasm) and pissed them off so thoroughly they forgot about Matty breaking a vase.
But Jake was in no condition to go find Matty, and so Matty spent all night in a dark closet and the next day, when Jake could finally move, Sir had already dragged Matty into the den and demanded to know why he thought startling people was a good idea.
Jake was too slow, too injured, too small. (Neal knows it wasn’t his fault. He does. But Jake still blames himself, and Sir, and the system.) Matty cried, but one swipe of Sir’s huge fist sent him reeling into the wall. Jake screamed and sobbed and swore he’d make Sir pay.
So two hours later, after Sir hid Matty’s body in the trunk and Ma’am made Sir breakfast, Jake snuck out the house and went three doors down, to Mrs. Tunston. Mrs. Tunston was the neighborhood busybody who made dozens of calls to the police a month, and Jake had quite the story to tell her.
And Jake collapsed at her feet, moaning about masked men and Mama and Daddy and the trunk. With a wailing child in the background, she called the police and soon enough officers arrived at the house, and they opened the trunk of Sir’s car to find tiny little Matty, so small Jake could still carry him around.
Jake spent a week in the hospital for broken ribs and a severely sprained ankle. But then he was put back into the system. (Neal still hates having to rely on anyone, because Jake spent his whole life hoping only to always be let down.)
When he was fifteen, Jake remade himself into Neal and started his career as a con artist, an art thief, a forger. He took advantage of a flawed system, and made sure his targets deserved it. (Neal doesn’t feel guilt for anything, except Matty. Matty’s the reason he learned to use a gun, because Sir got out of jail too soon and Neal could never beat him in a fair fight. So Neal mastered a weapon and confronted Sir and reminded him of those horrible months and then he shot Sir until he ran out of bullets. It took three clips.
Neal wishes he could raise the dead, so he could kill Sir again and again and again.)
No records exist of Neal Caffrey before his fifteenth birthday. Peter Burke has looked a hundred times, a hundred different ways. There are no records of Jacob Connors or his brother Matthew, either. No one thought to look for those, though. Jake and Matty only exist in Neal’s mind anymore.
Neal’s cons are far more elaborate than collapsing at some old woman’s feet, but at the start of every single one, he still feels terrified. He doesn’t have a little brother anymore, just a woman he loves, and he knows that Agent Burke is closing in.
Neal doesn’t worry; Jake tells him things’ll either work out or they won’t, and he remembers Matty when Burke yells, “FBI! Freeze!”
Neal freezes. Jake runs back in time, to before his parents died, to the hospital when Daddy said, “This is Matt. Take care of him, Jakey.”
(Alone in prison, dodging men who make him wish for a gun and thousands of bullets, Neal prays for his little brother’s soul. He never prays for himself.)
Title: arise! the morning is at hand
Fandom: Harry Potter
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Keats.
Warnings: pre-series
Pairings: none stated
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 150
Point of view: third
Prompt: booksack
What she misses most in those early days is how everything made sense back home. The world followed clear-cut, concrete rules, gravity and motion and all the rest. Very little was whimsical or fantastical—just normal. Utterly and simply normal.
But here, in a place of magic and myth, nothing makes sense. It’s all so bewildering, so scary—why did she want to come here? She should have never left home, with pictures that didn’t move and staircases that stayed where you left them and brooms that had no minds of their own.
But at home there is no adventure. For all the terror, there’s just as much wonder here, and…
Maybe here she can change things. Show them all what a muggleborn from a completely mundane background can do.
Petunia will be so impressed, and maybe Lily can finally be better at something.
So she stays.
Title: Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone
Fandom: The Magnificent Seven
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Matthew Arnold.
Warnings: character death
Pairings: none stated
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 155
Point of view: third
Prompt: table
He doesn’t want to stay here anymore. There’s no reason without his brothers, and they—they are gone. Most of them have died and only JD lives anymore, and he has changed, grown hard and unforgiving. He is nowhere near the kid that first rode into town, excited and young, so ready for adventure.
This town has no appeal without the others. Why he lived when they died, he doesn’t understand. Wishes he’d died with them. JD isn’t the same anymore, and he doesn’t owe the man JD has become.
He leaves without much regret, though he does pause at their graves. One at a time, he says goodbye, to Nathan and Josiah, to Buck and Chris, to Vin.
He glances back, as the sun rises to paint the desert with light, and JD stands at the edge of town, watching him go.
Ezra tips his hat one last time, clucks to his horse, and is gone.
Title: if you live long enough you will die knowing
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Gerald Stern.
Warnings: spoilers for up to 5.15
Pairings: mentions of canon het
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 185
Point of view: third
He doesn’t want to be their father. Sometimes, he wishes he had slammed the door harder, made sure they’d never come back. Refused to help when John got himself snatched and possessed.
And now, look what’s come of it. Life would be simpler, maybe. Or maybe he’d be dead. John and Dean would still have died, and Sam might be Azazel’s general, Lucifer’s consenting vessel.
Karen is dead again. She was brought back and killed because of the Winchesters. He wishes for a moment that he could turn them away. Tell them to leave and not come back. He lost his legs because of them. He lost his legs and had to suffer the pain of Karen’s death again. Twice he’s had to kill her.
The phone rings. He knows who it is. Those stupid and brave boys, and he wishes for one moment he was strong enough, mean enough, to turn them away.
The phone rings and he picks it up, puts it to his ear, and asks, “What’s gone wrong now?”
Family don’t end with blood, and the Winchesters need all the help they can get.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-15 08:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-16 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-16 04:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-16 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-04-16 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-16 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-16 08:03 pm (UTC)WC fic...
Date: 2010-04-16 08:23 pm (UTC)::cuddles Jake and Matty very gently and carefully::
Particularly liked Neal only referring to "Sir" and "Ma'am", not by names. That rang true to me, that he'd wipe their names from his memory. I had a particularly bad third-grade teacher, and did the same thing... In fact, years later I ran into a classmate from those days, who told me the teacher's name in the course of confirming that, yes, I was remembering things that really happened, and that she'd felt sorry for me 'cause I was one of the scapegoats for an emotionally abusive woman who was a failure as a teacher. Five minutes after the conversation ended, I'd forgotten the bitch's name again. (OTOH, I'll ALWAYS remember Mrs. Fiore, my wonderful 4th. grade teacher, who pulled strings to get me transferred to her "gifted" class after 3rd. grade test scores came in, so that I finished 3rd. grade there and then stayed for 4th. grade the following year...)
Would you like some proofreading comments?
Re: WC fic...
Date: 2010-04-17 01:38 pm (UTC)I've reread the story so many times my brain automatically corrects, you know? If you spotted something, feel free to tell me.
Proofreading//was Re: WC fic...
Date: 2010-04-18 08:51 am (UTC)Title: I pass like night, from land to land Fandom: Leverage
"(“Aren’t you ever afraid?” Hardison asks her, when they dangle forty-five floors up.
“Not by buildings,” she answers. Buildings have always been her friends.)"
...should be "Not of buildings"... She's not afraid OF them, because she's never been hurt BY them...
Oh, and thanks to several people, including you, who've written "Leverage"/"White Collar" crossovers, or else posted "Leverage" fic with their fic from fandoms I already know, I've found a new fandom & started watching "Leverage" via DVDs from NetFlix. Just what I need, MORE fandoms... :-}
===================
Title: sin of living Fandom: White Collar
"And Jake collapsed at her feet, moaning about masked and men and Mama and Daddy and the trunk."
should be "moaning about masked men"... no "and"...
That's it... Feel free to delete this comment if/when you edit the drabbles... :-)
Re: Proofreading//was Re: WC fic...
Date: 2010-04-18 03:16 pm (UTC)Thank you for letting me know about the typos.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 01:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-21 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 02:44 pm (UTC)