![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigriswolfTitle: the seam of a cloud
Fandom: Chuck
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AU
Pairings: Chuck/Bryce, Chuck/Sarah, Bryce/Sarah
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 175
Point of view: third
Prompt: Chuck/Bryce and Sarah, so obviously in love with their secret smiles, small touches and private jokes that it saddens Sarah to know that she never had that with either of them. Not very angsty or anything but more of a realisation of how good Chuck and Bryce are for each other.
She had Bryce for only a few years, when they were partners and lovers but never friends. They complemented each other's styles, and they saved each other's lives, and they were amazing together, perhaps the best team the CIA ever had.
She had Chuck for only a few years, when they fake-dated for a cover and he had an adorable crush and she fell in love. He was everything she never had but always wanted, what Bryce might have been. What Bryce had been, once. Before she knew him.
But Bryce and Chuck had each other before she ever entered the picture, and she had only been a substitute for both.
She could make a scene here. If she were a lesser woman, she would. But she loves them both, the men who were never hers because they met each other first. And they are the best, will be the best, have always been the best, and so Sarah smiles at them, the men smiling like they never had for her, and she steps aside.
Title: the stain of an old kiss
Fandom: NCIS
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: takes place in season 2
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 105
Point of view: third
Prompt: Tony&Kate, he has roses delivered to her without a note and watches her smile distractedly at them the rest of the day
After a split-second of maybe? nah, probably not. he'd be crowing it to the roof that he can see parade across her face, Kate doesn't think it's him. A simple bouquet of pink roses, set carefully on the corner of her desk, and she smiles at them in quick little glances for the rest of the day.
Whenever she does, Tony grins down at his desk. He catches Gibbs grinning, too.
(Later, a pink rose is found pressed between the pages of a book in her desk.
Tony's smile is sad, but real, and he caresses the book before gently setting it into the box.)
Title: burning for you
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AU
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Wordcount: 165
Point of view: third
Prompt: Alastair/Castiel; the limits of endurance.
Castiel can no longer feel his wings. He does not know how long this day has lasted, how long he has been spread across the rack. A thousand demons have each had a turn, and at the end of every one, Alistair stepped up and caressed him with a blade.
But he does not know how long it's been since he tried to save a man only to be caught himself.
He has lost faith. Father has not come for him, nor any of his siblings.
And Alistair says, "Got a treat for you, angel."
Suddenly, Castiel's wings are burning and he feels it. And the man he tried to save is standing at Alistair's shoulder, razor in hand and eyes black as the Pit into which Castiel fell.
And Alistair says, "Go get him, kiddo," and the man Castiel failed to save smiles and smiles, sharp as the razor in his fist and as bright as the sky Castiel will never again fly across.
Title: lay me down
Fandom: Leverage
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: future!fic, utterly depressing
Pairings: implied pre-Parker/Hardison/Eliot
Rating: PG
Point of view: third
Wordcount: 465
Prompt: Hardison (/or& Eliot /or& Parker); when it becomes necessary, Hardison can be just as much of a monster as any of them.
Parker has been missing for three days. Eliot is in a coma. Nate crawled back into the bottle and Sophie is calling on favor after favor, none of which have panned out. Parker vanished into smoke, and no one knows what happened before Eliot was found, head broken open.
Alec has sunk himself deep into his connections, spreading himself across the entire network, and there is nothing. He can't find Parker, can't heal Eliot, can't help Sophie. Doesn't want to help Nate, since it was his fucking plan that blew all to hell, and Parker is missing. Eliot is dying.
Nate's broken, and Sophie's crying.
And then, there. One tiny mistake made by the people who took Parker, who shattered Eliot.
(Eliot got worse today, and Parker's been gone for nearly two weeks.)
Alec doesn't call Sophie, doesn't tell Nate. He visits Eliot in the hospital one final time.
(Parker's body will be identified by Sophie, using a cover Alec made a year ago. Sophie is Parker's older sister. She will cling to the officer who leads her back, sobbing like she never has for any con. This isn't a con. This is real.)
"I'm sorry," Alec whispers to Eliot, one palm on Eliot's hand, gently clutching his fingers. He presses a soft kiss to Eliot's forehead. So much he should have said, stagnating in his throat, never to be heard now. So much he never told Eliot, won't get the chance to tell Parker.
"You rest now," he tells Eliot. "My turn. I got this."
(Eliot dies without ever waking. Sophie claims the body. Nate drinks himself to death the following year.)
Alec once again sinks into his computer, determined to utterly destroy the men who killed Parker and Eliot, who will kill Nate soon enough, and money goes missing, messages are lost, covers are broken, and the government called in. The organization that defeated them falls within a month's time of Alec learning the leader's name. The leader lasts a day after that.
And Alec goes to the pretty spot Sophie picked, where Eliot and Parker rest under different names. Nate will join them in less than a year. Sophie never will because no one else will be left who knows that she should.
It would be easy for Alec to kill himself, join them here.
But Parker is laughing and Eliot scowling, and he knows they don't want him to, not yet.
(Half a decade later, when Alec is caught and killed because no team has ever been as good as the one that was his family, Sophie drops a con in the middle and claims his body and places him next to Parker.
When she dies in a hit seven years after that, no one claims her body and no one knows her name.)
Title: blue-bleak embers
Fandom: Chuck/White Collar
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: future!fic; AU for Chuck
Pairings: OT3
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 445
Point of view: third
Prompt: Chuck/White Collar, Bryce!Neal +or/ any, Neal will maintain his cover through physical torture if he must - but when someone he loves is the one being tortured he'll risk everything
They grabbed Elizabeth last night, while she walked to her car. She'd stayed late at the office for some little detail only the boss could see to, while Peter and Neal waited at home. Uselessly at home, waiting for her, and she never came and now she's missing.
It has nothing to do with the case Peter's working or some con Neal pulled ten years ago. Peter's checked everything, pulled every file, combed through a million small details and he's at a loss. Doesn't know why they took Elizabeth or who they are.
Neal doesn't know either. Neal couldn't know, shouldn't know. Neal stayed away from certain parts of his profession. Didn't want to get involved with anyone who was violent or dealt in flesh.
But now Elizabeth's been gone for three days without a call, without a ransom, without a clue.
And while Neal doesn't know, Bryce could find out.
So Peter is in his office, following up on leads that go nowhere and Neal crouches in the corner, settling against the wall. He ignores Peter, ignores Diana and Jones, closes his eyes and lets all the barriers in his mind drop.
There are things he can't ignore anymore, not with El snatched and gone. Not with Peter cracking at the seams.
Neal closed his eyes, but Bryce opens them. And while Neal shied away from violence, Bryce won't. He's been sleeping for five years now, first in the tail-end of a sentence Neal barely served and then as the Burkes' pet con, but now, now—
"Neal?" Diana asks, drawing Peter's attention to the man leaning against the wall.
Bryce answers, "I have an idea," because he knows things Neal never has and he's done things Neal never could, and there's a man in the underbelly of New York he needs to pay a visit to.
"Neal!" Peter yells after him, but the tracker is left just outside the doors and Neal is gone.
(Bryce finds El a day later. Neal carries her to the ER. The people who took her are never located, but Bryce knows where all the pieces are.
Peter asks and Hughes demands, but since Elizabeth is alive, they just put the tracker back on.
Once El is home, Peter wraps around her and Neal curls in as close he dares, and he hesitantly tells them a story about a boy who went to Stanford, who was tricked into the CIA, who wanted out and died to do it, who is dead most of the time, except when Neal needs him.
"Okay," Elizabeth says and kisses Neal's forehead.
Peter smiles at him and Neal doesn't dream about Chuck that night.)